Did the British weekly New European publish a special issue cover with a cartoon of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sitting on the lap of Dalai Lama and saying: "I'll suck it if you pay me"? No, that's not true: The illustration has not appeared in any issue of The New European.
On April 18, 2023, the cover in English with the caricature appeared in a video (archived here) posted on the TikTok account mama6boy
The illustration shows Zelenskyy sitting on the Dalai Lama's lap and offering to suck the Dalai Lama's tongue if Dalai Lama pays him. On the left is a man who looks like British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. A headline falsely attributed to journalist James Ball asks, how much is Britain willing to pay to resolve the Ukrainian crisis?
The video has a text with the Russian translation of what Zelenskyy is saying to the spiritual leader of the Tibetans and an explanatory note:
British magazine New European has found who sucks the tongue of the Dalai Lama
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Apr 21 15:45:34 2023 UTC)
A number of TikTok accounts posted this cover, e.g., here and here. One example of this fake illustration appeared in a Facebook post on April 19, 2023. This cartoon goes viral on Russian-speaking Twitter here, here, or here.
During an in-person interview on April 20th, 2023, The New European's founder and editor-in-chief Matt Kelly told Lead Stories: "This cover is 100% fake". The denial was posted on its Twitter account.
The authentic issue 337| April 20-26, 2023, depicts the British prime minister sitting in a beach chair.
Fake cartoons of Zelenskyy, allegedly featured in various prestigious international media, are frequently disseminated by Russian propaganda.
