Did a journalist take cocaine live on Ukrainian television?

Videos on social media show a Ukrainian journalist taking cocaine in full duplex on television. This is a montage.

On X, formerly Twitter, and on pro-Russian Telegram channels, this video had millions of views at the end of May. We see a duplex journalist on Ukrainian television. He obviously does not realize that he is live and begins to take a substance through his nose, which appears to be cocaine. The duplex cuts out and the presenter, a little embarrassed, returns to the air after trying to warn his interlocutor that he was live, in vain.

On social networks, the pro-Russian and conspiracy accounts which share this video, of very poor quality, accompany it with this type of comments: “cocaine live on Ukrainian television, Ukraine unmasked, camera turned on too early.” Except that it is a montage.

By doing a reverse image search on Yandex, the Russian Google image, we found the original interview. It took place on February 17, 2024, on the Ukrainian channel Inter, then taken over by another Ukrainian channel, 1+1, that we see in the extracts.

There is indeed a duplex guest, except that it is not a journalist taking drugs, but the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba. Several clues in the image prove that it is indeed the same interview, the presenter on set is the same, the interview location which appears at the end of the video in subtitles is the same. Finally we find the same embarrassed look of the presenter on set, not because a journalist takes cocaine during his live broadcast, but because the head of Ukrainian diplomacy has just smoked his cigar in full live television. He thought the show was over. The presenter tried to warn him, but the sound was cut. At the time the Ukrainian minister was mocked for this sequence.

This is not the first time that cocaine has been used in montages to attack Ukraine on social networks. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has regularly been the subject of disinformation coming from Russia, particularly on drug use.

For example, from the start of the conflict, images showed an interview with the Ukrainian president in which he confirmed using cocaine. He presented this drug as “the best energizer for humans” and recommended its use. This was, again, a crude montage.