AAP FACTCHECK – A fake cover of The Economist magazine depicting Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin against an apocalyptic background has been shared on social media and pushed by a pro-Kremlin Telegram channel.
The faked image depicts US president-elect Trump and Russian President Putin in a face-to-face confrontation with missiles between them and the headline “APOCALYPSE”.
The cover has turned up in Facebook posts, in X posts and on Instagram.
The image bears The Economist’s standard masthead and is accompanied by comments such as “…is Trump afraid to see how Biden’s gang is starting a nuclear war?”
However, there are telltale signs the cover is fake. There is no publication date and spelling mistakes and errors appear in the cover lines (top right corner):
- “America pumbed-up economy” should read “America’s pumped-up economy”
- “Times up for TikTok” is missing the apostrophe in “Time’s”
- “industry” is missing an r in “A special report on oil industy”
- “Biden left the White House” is untrue as Joe Biden is still the serving president.
Most of these cover lines appear, correctly spelled, on a genuine Economist cover from March 16, while the genuine February 24 cover featured Mr Putin and Mr Trump, in a different stance, with the headline “IS EUROPE READY?”.
The Economist’s covers archive does not include the fake cover and it doesn’t appear anywhere else on the popular magazine’s website.
AAP FactCheck contacted The Economist but did not receive a response before publication.
The fake cover has been shared as tensions heighten between Russia and the West over the US decision to allow Ukraine to use American long-range missiles against Russia.
Russia’s response, a hypersonic missile launched against Ukraine on November 22, was reportedly a message to the West to “back off” if they want to avoid a missile strike against US and British targets.
Social media posts sharing the fake Economist cover promote the message that Putin does not want nuclear war, and that reports of a bomb – or World War III – are emanating from “the Cabal” (the West).
The fake cover has echoes of a similar fake in June 2024, which depicted Mr Putin and President Joe Biden head to head over a chess game.
NewsGuard has linked the most recent cover to pro-Kremlin sources, who it says have been pushing the fake image to warn that US and NATO support of Ukraine, particularly the recent missile decision, have brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
It cites Telegram channel @GolosMordora, which is affiliated with Russian intelligence services, as pushing the claim.
The fake cover was published on Telegram on November 18.
Telegram translates the post into English as: “‘Allowing missile strikes deep into Russia is the beginning of World War III,’ warns the iconic prophetic magazine The Economist.
“Experts have long suspected that the authors are backed by the global elite – they have predicted all the epochal events since 1983 with frightening accuracy. This was the case with the COVID-19 epidemic, the NWO and the conflict in the Middle East.
“In the warning for December-January: what radical measures will Russia take in response, which countries will intervene in the conflict and who will be the first to use nuclear weapons – read the analysis if you are not afraid to find out the truth.”
The post ends with a link to a fake Economist Telegram account.
The Verdict
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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