Russian propaganda forges Charlie Hebdo cover about Angelina Jolie’s visit to Ukraine

Propagandists attempt to divert Western attention from Russia’s crimes in Kherson and Mykolaiv.

Kremlin-aligned media outlets, Russian Telegram channels, and bot accounts on X are circulating a supposedly new cover of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It features a caricature of President Volodymyr Zelensky and Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, who recently visited Ukraine. The cover is accompanied by the caption: “The tomb raider has arrived to meet the raider of the European treasury.”

This is fake. No such cover exists on the official Charlie Hebdo website nor on the magazine’s social media channels, where first pages of new issues are typically published.

The falsified cover lists a release date of November 13 and weekly issue number 1741, but no new Charlie Hebdo issue was published on that day.

In reality, the latest two issues were released on November 5 and November 12, numbered 1737 and 1738 respectively. Both featured entirely different cartoons unrelated to Ukraine.

Russian propagandists frequently create and spread fake covers of well-known foreign satirical magazines. Their “creative portfolio” already includes fabricated “covers” of the German magazine Titanic, French publications Courrier International and Franc Tireur, the Indian weekly Ananda Vikatan, the U.S. political satire magazine Humor Times, the Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves, among others.

This particular fake aims to discredit the President of Ukraine in the eyes of Western audiences and to shift attention away from the purpose of Angelina Jolie’s humanitarian visit. Jolie intended to draw global attention to Russian crimes in Kherson and Mykolaiv, where drones are being used to conduct what locals describe as “human safaris.”

On her Instagram account, she posted a message describing her experience:

“I visited Mykolaiv and Kherson in Ukraine this week to meet families living on the frontline. The threat of drones was a constant, heavy presence. You hear a low hum in the sky. It’s become known locally as a ‘human safari’, with drones used to track, hunt and terrorize people, constantly. There was a moment when we had to pause and wait while a drone flew overhead. I was in protective gear, and for me, it was just a couple of days. The families here live with this every single day,” the actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador wrote.

As reported by Ukrinform, Russian propaganda had earlier spread a fake claim that Ukraine was sending 17-year-olds to fight in Pokrovsk.

Andrii Olenin