A Facebook post from February 21 claims that Volodymyr Zelensky was one of the caricatured figures in the Italian carnival. Everything will have happened in this year’s edition. However, looking at the available information and the image, it can be said that it is a false publication that results from edited images.

In the first image of the photograph that is shared, it is clearly seen that it is a very bad edition. Through an internet search of the image presented in the post under analysis, it is possible to see that the original version was captured during the passage of the carnival parade in Viareggio, in the Tuscany region, a celebration that took place between the 4th and February 25, with events on each of the weekends of that period.

Analyzing the image with the indicated tools, such as Google Images, it becomes clear that it is an old photograph: it is from March 3, 2003 and, in fact, it was taken in Germany, not Italy. In its original version, it portrays Angela Merkel, former German chancellor. At the time, Merkel, who had not yet been nominated as chancellor and was being criticized by her party, the CDU, which supported the 2001 invasion of Iraq.

The original image shows Angela Merkel, not Volodymyr Zelensky. There is also no Ukrainian flag with the Nazi swastika superimposed on it.

The image can be found on the Wikipedia page, for example, and was taken by Jacques Tilly. In the actual image, two American flags are visible. No Ukrainian flag is visible, bearing the symbol of Hitler’s Nazi regime, as seen in the doctored photograph from the original post. It should be noted that this publication has previously been denied by other international fact-checkers.

Conclusion

It is not true that Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, was one of the figures featured in carnival celebrations in one region of Italy this year. The original image of the publication has been modified. Also, the image has been taken out of context, since it was taken in 2003 in Germany, not in the Viareggio carnival edition in Italy this year. The original face that is on the United States float belongs to Angela Merkel.

Thus, according to the Observer classification system, this content is:

MISTAKEN

In Facebook’s rating system, this content is:

FAKE: Main content claims are factually inaccurate. This option generally corresponds to “fake” or “mostly false” ratings on fact-checking sites.

NOTE: This content was curated by The Observer as part of a fact-checking partnership with Facebook