{"id":1452638,"date":"2022-04-25T09:30:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T13:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1452638"},"modified":"2022-04-25T09:30:42","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T13:30:42","slug":"fact-check-did-volodymyr-zelenskyy-endorse-drug-use-in-an-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-did-volodymyr-zelenskyy-endorse-drug-use-in-an-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Did Volodymyr Zelenskyy Endorse Drug Use In An Interview?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-did-volodymyr-zelenskyy-endorse-drug-use-in-an-interview%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1452638&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A video <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/5nehT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shared on Facebook<\/a> claims to show Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsing drug use in an interview.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Verdict: False<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The captions of the interview have been altered. While Zelenskyy was asked about cocaine in the interview, he denied ever using it.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Fact Check:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Zelenskyy recently received the John F. Kennedy award for defending democracy for his leadership of Ukraine during Russia\u2019s invasion of the country, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-2022-midterm-elections-zelenskyy-boston-jocelyn-benson-f407c038e90d4eee084a9d0c6f933218\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Associated Press<\/a>. The Ukrainian leader has warned that his country will need \u201chundreds of billions\u201d to rebuild infrastructure, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/video\/zelenskyy-ukraine-will-need-hundreds-of-billions-to-rebuild-138291269744\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NBC News<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>An April 18 Facebook video allegedly shows Zelenskyy admitting to using drugs and endorsing drug use, particularly cocaine, in an interview. \u201cThis is energy for the whole day. At 7 a.m, I got up. Took a walk with the dog. And I do snort drugs,\u201d Zelenskyy allegedly said, according to the video\u2019s English captions.<\/p>\n<p>The captions are incorrect. A reverse image search revealed the video stems from an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Kd5ZBo8QCrs&#038;t=2s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">interview<\/a> Zelesnkyy did with Ukrainian news outlet <a href=\"https:\/\/www-pravda-com-ua.translate.goog\/rus\/articles\/2019\/01\/21\/7204341\/?_x_tr_sl=auto&#038;_x_tr_tl=en&#038;_x_tr_hl=en&#038;_x_tr_pto=wapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ukrayinska Pravda<\/a> during the 2019 presidential election in Ukraine. The interviewer asked a question that touched on allegations from political circles that the then-candidate was \u201csitting on coke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span class=\"goog-text-highlight\">No, I\u2019m sitting on a white one, but on a chair. It\u2019s not coke<\/span><em><span class=\"\">,<\/span><\/em>\u201d Zelenskyy said at the time, according to a translation of the interview. The then-presidential candidate then joked that, while he doesn\u2019t do drugs, he sniffs coffee \u201cbecause I\u2019m a coffee addict.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ukrayinska Pravda wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/www-pravda-com-ua.translate.goog\/news\/2019\/04\/8\/7211616\/?_x_tr_sl=auto&#038;_x_tr_tl=en&#038;_x_tr_hl=en&#038;_x_tr_pto=wapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">follow-up article<\/a> in April 2019 regarding the falsely-captioned video, claiming it \u201c<span class=\"\">was edited and completely taken out of the context.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0The outlet then published a snippet of the relevant conversation between the interviewer and Zelenskyy on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WNRUDEyxh_0&#038;t=1s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a>, along with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Kd5ZBo8QCrs&#038;t=2s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">full interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n[embedded content]\n<p>Russian and Georgian social media users have recently shared the video as the conflict in Ukraine continues, though the video also circulated on Russian social media sites in 2019, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/mythdetector.ge\/en\/coffee-drugs-or-sport-what-did-zelenskyy-talk-about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Myth Detector<\/a>. Zelenskyy took at least one drug test during the 2019 presidential campaign, Reuters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-ukraine-election-drug-test\/ukraine-presidential-rivals-undergo-televised-drug-tests-idUSKCN1RH0WP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Zelesnkyy has been the target of misinformation since the start of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. In March, Check Your Fact debunked a fabricated photo of him holding a soccer jersey with a <a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2022\/03\/08\/fact-check-volodymyr-zelenskyy-soccer-jersey-swastika\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">swastika<\/a> on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A video shared on Facebook claims to show Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsing drug use in an interview.Verdict: False The captions of the interview have been altered. While Zelenskyy was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":1480348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}