Miscaptioned picture of Vladimir Putin with African leaders is not recent, dates back to 2019
Social media users shared the miscaptioned image on March 20.
(Reuters) - A picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin posing alongside several African leaders was taken at the 2019 Russia-Africa summit in Sochi, not during the Russia-Africa parliamentary conference that took place in Moscow in March 2023.
Social media users shared the miscaptioned image on March 20 (here), (tinyurl.com/2ffr9a9n) with descriptions such as: “AFRICA - Gov representatives from 40 African countries have gone to Moscow today, for a conference called ‘Russia-Africa in a Multipolar World’ Whilst the media spins propaganda about Net Zero & war, they aren’t telling you that Africa is refusing to do as it’s told! Focus.”
The 2023 Russia-Africa parliamentary conference took place in Moscow on March 19 and 20 (here). Videos of this year’s conference were uploaded to the Russian government’s website (here).
A press release issued by the Russian Duma on March 20 says that parliamentary delegations of African countries, were present during the 2023 conference (duma.gov.ru/en/news/56536/).
The photograph shared online was not taken at this event, however, and is more than three years old.
An image search leads to articles (here) that credit the Kremlin for the photo. The original can be seen (here), dated Oct. 24, 2019 and captioned, “The heads of delegations attending the Russia-Africa Summit pose for photographs.”
A similar photo of the same group of leaders can be seen on Getty Images (here).
Reuters reporting on the 2019 summit is viewable (here).
VERDICT
Miscaptioned. The photograph was taken at the 2019 Russia-Africa summit, not during the recent parliamentary conference in Moscow.
