Hundreds of Internet users denounce on social networks that the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyvideos have been recorded with a background chroma key to simulate that it was in places of Kiev where it wasn’t. However, this does not prove that she fled the Ukrainian capital or his country.
The theory that Zelensky had escaped from kyiv began to circulate online shortly following Russia launched its military offensive once morest Ukraine and even senior Russian officials spread this thesis, such as the president of the Duma (Lower House of Parliament), Viacheslav Volodin, who assured that the Ukrainian president had fled to Lviv (Leopolis), near the border with Poland.
As proof of this alleged escape, various Internet users argue that Zelensky has published videos where he is seen in different parts of kyiv when, in reality, they would have been recorded on a green background and, later, digitally altered to simulate the presence of the Ukrainian president in streets.
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ACTS: Indeed, Zelensky has resorted to the chromakey technique on more than one occasion to simulate his presence in places in kyiv where he was not, but nothing proves that he has fled and, in fact, he received heads of government, the media in the capital and, in recent days, the president of the European Parliament, without forgetting that last Monday she was seen in Bucha.
VIDEOS OF ZELENSKY ON THE STREET THAT WERE RECORDED WITH CHROMA
Although it is not proof of his alleged flight from kyiv, it is true that Zelensky has published videos recorded in front of a chroma key, as confirmed by EFE Verifica following consulting with experts in this type of digital effects.
One of them was the one published by Zelensky on March 19 on Facebook and on his Telegram channel, where he is seen in front of the House with Chimeras, a modernist building located in front of the presidential office.
As explained by the digital marketing expert José Noblejas, at the beginning of the video, the Ukrainian president advances towards the camera in such a way that, “in two steps, grow a meter“, something “too strong to be a real situation”. And, in addition, his shoulders are blurred with the background, another clear indication that it was recorded before a chroma key.
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IN OTHER RECORDINGS, THE BACKGROUND WAS REAL
He also used this trick in a video published on March 8, in which Zelensky simulates recording himself with a cell phone in front of a trench. Noblejas highlights how part of his right ear disappears from the image when he is superimposed on the license plate of a vehicle parked next to the trench.
“When around the head we have small size elements, it is easy for the chroma to eat part of one of the elements, as it happens in the license plate”, emphasizes the expert.
However, other videos of Zelensky questioned by Internet users were actually recorded on the stages of kyiv where the Ukrainian president is seen and did not suffer any digital manipulation, as confirmed by the cinematographer Juae Martín, an expert in chroma key.
That is the case of the video released on March 11, in which Zelensky is seen on the street in front of the presidential office, or the one published this Wednesday on his Instagram account, which was recorded in his official office. The consistency in lighting, shadows, camera movements and other details show in both cases that they were not digitally falsified, as verified by this expert.
RECEIVED INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATIVES AND JOURNALISTS IN kyiv
In any case, there is evidence of Zelensky’s presence in kyiv at different times during the Russian invasion, the last one this Monday, when several media outlets witnessed his visit to Bucha, a city located on the outskirts of the capital that suffered a massacre of civilians during the occupation by Russian forces.
A few days earlier, on April 1, the Ukrainian president received the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, in kyiv, who posted a photo of the meeting on Twitter.
And on March 15, Zelensky had met with the prime ministers of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, of the Czech Republic, Pietr Fiala, and of Slovenia, Janez Jansa, in a room where he had already held diplomatic meetings before the Russian invasion, as evidenced by the published photographs of the meeting.
In addition, he has been interviewed in kyiv by several international media: on March 28 by The Economist magazine and, a few weeks earlier, on March 1, by the Archyde.com agency and the CNN network in the bunker of a government building.
