Pro-Russian social media users have been widely circulating what looks like a Euronews report showing French farmers dumping manure outside the Ukrainian embassy. French farmers began protesting for better pay in January and the video claims that the farmers took the drastic manure action after the Ukrainian ambassador penned a letter asking them to stop their protests. But this video is fake. It’s one of a series of fake news reports aimed at making Ukraine look bad in the eyes of the West.
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A video that looks like a news report from broadcaster Euronews shows French farmers dumping manure outside what the report says is the Ukrainian embassy in Paris. According to the same “report”, the farmers were angry after the Ukrainian ambassador penned a letter asking them to stop their ongoing protests.
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However, Euronews says this video wasn’t made by their channel.
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Moreover, the building in the footage isn’t the Ukrainian embassy, it’s actually the headquarters of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regional Council in Dijon. Farmers really did spread manure there during a protest on December 15.
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The “news report” also features a letter from the Ukrainian ambassador. It turns out, however, that this is also fake. The signature looks nothing like the signature of the real ambassador.
The fact check, in detail:
“Ukrainian embassy’s call to end protests angered French farmers” reads the text on a video news report that started to circulate on Twitter and Facebook on February 10. The news report, which looks like it comes from broadcaster Euronews, includes footage of a pile of manure dumped by farmers in front of a large building.
French farmers began a series of massive protests back in January, demanding better pay and working conditions. The video claims that the farmers were angry that the Ukrainian ambassador had written them a letter, asking them to end their protests. The video further claims that the president of FNSEA, France’s main agricultural union, told the Ukrainian ambassador to “keep his opinions to himself”.
This fake video garnered more than 150,000 views on Twitter. It was also published by dozens of Facebook accounts, like this one and, again, this one.
However, the video doesn’t appear anywhere on the Euronews website or any of its social media channels.
Our team reached out to Euronews, who told us that they did not produce or publish this video.
“It’s a sophisticated imitation of the style, visuals and format of Euronews,” the outlet said. “Over the past twelve months, we have encountered a number of similar cases where fake Euronews videos began to circulate online.”
The images did not show an embassy, but the seat of the regional council in Dijon
Moreover, if you search online then you won’t find any information about a farmers’ protest in front of the Ukrainian embassy.
Our team carried out a simple reverse image search on the video (check out our how-to guide to find out how). By doing this, we discovered where the video was really filmed. It shows farmers dumping manure in front of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regional Council in Dijon and has been circulating online since at least January 3, 2024. French media outlet France Bleu also published images of the same protest. The manure dump was part of a protest organised on December 15, 2023 during which farmers decried a delay in subsidy payments.
Images available on Google Maps confirm that the building is, indeed, the headquarters of the regional council in Dijon and not the Ukrainian embassy in Paris.
A fake letter from the Ukrainian ambassador
The video also features a letter apparently sent from the Ukrainian ambassador to French farmers, dated February 7, 2024. However, no official source and no social media network mentions this letter. And our internet searches didn’t unearth any proof of this document’s existence.
However, the signature on this letter doesn’t correspond with the signature of the Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Omelchenko, as reported by Italian fact-checking outlet Open Online. You can see Omelchenko’s real signature on this letter to the city government of Neuilly, a western suburb of Paris, or this letter addressed to the former French ambassador in Ukraine.
The FRANCE 24 Observers team reached out to the Ukrainian embassy, but we have not yet received a response. We will update this page if and when they come back to us.
And, no, the president of a farmers’ union didn’t tell the ambassador to ‘keep his opinions to himself’
The video also reports that, after seeing the letter from the Ukrainian ambassador, Arnaud Rousseau, the president of farmers’ union FNSEA, told the ambassador to “concentrate on Ukraine” and added: “Ukraine doesn’t have the right to ask anything of the French people. Keep your opinions to yourself.”
However, our internet searches dug up no proof that Rousseau had said anything of the sort. These quotes don’t appear in any media outlets or official documents. Our team reached out to FNSEA, but, for the time being, we haven’t heard anything back.
Fake videos made to look like news reports from Western media outlets have been circulating since the start of the war in Ukraine, but their number increased dramatically in 2023. These videos are made as an attempt to discredit Ukrainian authorities.
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