Has a fundraising billboard been installed in the center of Milan, Italy, at the Piazza del Duomo, depicting Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelenskyy inhaling banknotes with his nostril? No, that's not true: This video has been manipulated. Lead Stories spoke to a representative of the Municipality of Milan, who said no such billboard had appeared there as of April 7, 2023. In addition, no credible account of such a billboard had been published on the web as of April 10, 2023.
On April 6, 2023, this video was posted on the TikTok account user3134065082359. The video is archived here.
Below is how the post appeared on TikTok at the time of this writing:
(Source: TikTok.com screengrab taken Fri Apr 7 09:32:23 2023 UTC)
The watermark on the video leads to a Telegram channel called "Omarov Today" that posted the video on April 4th, 2023. Here's how the post appeared on Telegram at the time of this writing:
The video has been shared on several TikTok accounts in different languages (here and here) and other platforms, like Twitter (here and here).
In a comment to Lead Stories, the Municipality of Milan denied there is a billboard depicting Zelenskyy inhaling banknotes. On April 7, 2023, the Chief Press Officer of the Municipality of Milan, Ms. Anna Gallo, in correspondence with Lead Stories, wrote:
Regarding the video showing a 'pro-Ukraine' fundraising billboard in Piazza Duomo, the City of Milan denies that it is an original video since no such billboard has ever been authorized in the spaces of the municipal administration.
Lead Stories performed a Google search for news and images of a Zelensky billboard in the square in Milan on April 10, 2023, and found no credible reporting of such a billboard.
