Did Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko call his close ally Russian President Putin a "scum" or a "louse?" No, that's not true: The audio clip has been digitally altered from an original version, in which Lukashenko referred to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as a scum, not to Putin.
A video (archived here) was posted on the TikTok account arkosha.pagrom on March 13, 2023. The Russian-language caption reads and Lukashenko's audio says (as translated by Lead Stories staff):
President Putin is just a scum. Just a scum!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sat May 6 11:01:41 2023 UTC)
The original video dated March 7, shows the Belarussian leader presenting government awards to high-ranking officers in Minsk. He spoke about the situation in Belarus and claimed Ukrainian agents were caught attempting to sabotage aircraft at a military facility in Belarus. While speaking, Lukashenko said:
There is one conclusion. I once thought that Ukraine needed peace and that Zelenskyy was rooting for his people. President Zelenskyy is just a scum. Just a scum! Such operations are not carried out without the approval of the head of the country and the commander-in-chief. I am telling you this as President.
The exact word the Belarusian president used to call Zelenskyy is "louse." In the Russian language, the word "louse" has two meanings, "louse" and "scum." Lukashenko used the word "louse" in the second connotation. The author of the video posted on TikTok replaced Zelenskyy's name with Putin's.
As of May 09, 2023, this video has gotten over two million views and about 150,000 likes, and continues trending in the Russian-speaking segment of TikTok (here or here).
