Russia Spreads Fake Economist Cover to Stoke WWIII Fears

On 22 Novem­ber 2024, News­Guard Real­i­ty Check report­ed that pro-Krem­lin sources are cir­cu­lat­ing a fab­ri­cat­ed cov­er of The Econ­o­mist mag­a­zine to sug­gest U.S. sup­port for Ukraine threat­ens glob­al war. The arti­cle begins:

Pro-Krem­lin sources advance a fab­ri­cat­ed cov­er of The Econ­o­mist to claim U.S. sup­port for Ukraine will cause World War III. The claim was pushed after U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden autho­rized Ukraine to use Amer­i­can long-range mis­siles for strikes inside Rus­sia. The fab­ri­cat­ed cov­er includes the word “APOCALYPSE,” along with an image of Trump and Putin face to face, and with mis­siles on an all-red background…

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Key Points:

1. Pro-Russ­ian chan­nels dis­trib­uted a fake Econ­o­mist mag­a­zine cov­er lack­ing stan­dard for­mat­ting and con­tain­ing spelling errors to spread disinformation.
2. The fab­ri­cat­ed cov­er false­ly claimed The Econ­o­mist warned that U.S. mis­sile autho­riza­tion for Ukraine would trig­ger World War III.
3. Russ­ian intel­li­gence-linked Telegram chan­nels and the Prav­da net­work, known for spread­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, ampli­fied the fake cov­er story.
4. Social media plat­forms are increas­ing­ly see­ing fab­ri­cat­ed posts that deceive both sup­port­ers and crit­ics of polit­i­cal figures.