Posted by Published Dec 02, 2024 at 7:33 AM EST
Updated Dec 02, 2024 at 8:05 AM EST UP DATED BY WATCHERS FEBRUARY 28TH 2025.
Putin Open To Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan, Aims To Avoid Concessions-Reports
By Hugh Cameron
Live News Reporter
Newsweek Is A Trust Project Member
A senior Russian official has accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of being a drug addict who will prolong the conflict to maintain his hold on poweR
“The regime will continue to insist on a total war to the last Ukrainian and drag out the elections as much as possible,” Dmitry Medvedev posted to Telegram on Sunday. “Because this is the only way to preserve the power of an illegitimate drug addict.”
Medvedev, who previously held the posts of both Russian prime minister and president, currently serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council.
Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry for a response to Medvedev’s comments.
Medvedev’s comments were in reference to a recent opinion poll of 1,200 Ukrainians from the Kyiv-based Social Monitoring Centre, published in British newspaper The Times, which found that only 16 percent of Ukrainians would vote for the incumbent president.
Some 27 percent opted instead for Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former commander in chief of the country’s armed forces who currently serves as the ambassador to the U.K. The poll also indicated that around 60 percent of respondents would prefer Zelensky not to run for reelection.
Following the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, martial law has been in effect in Ukraine and prevented another presidential election from taking place.
In late October, the Ukrainian parliament again approved Zelensky’s decree to extend martial law for another 90 days, putting off the prospect of a presidential election to February 7 at the earliest.
Medvedev’s claim regarding Zelensky’s alleged drug abuse has been parroted by pro-Kremlin figures since the early days of the invasion in an effort to delegitimize the incumbent’s authority and his handling of the war.
“Allegations that Zelensky is a drug addict have been shared by Russian sources—and levied by Russian officials—since the early days of the 2019 presidential campaign that rocketed Zelensky to power,” Nina Jankowicz, who briefly headed Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board before its dissolution in August 2022, told Newsweek.
“The idea behind it is to delegitimize his competence and bravery, particularly among audiences that might be more traditional or right-leaning,” added Jankowicz, the author of How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict. “It also casts a pallor of untrustworthiness over him and his leadership for any heads of state or government officials seeking to negotiate with him.”
In May 2022, pro-Russian social media accounts circulated a video of the president apparently admitting to using cocaine. Reuters deemed the video “digitally altered” and said that it combined “several clipped fragments” from the original 2019 interview with Ukrainska Pravda, during which Zelensky discussed his love for coffee and denied using drugs.
A year later, Sergei Aksenov, governor of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Crimea, said that authorities had seized the apartment of “drug addict Zelensky” as well as properties belonging to “those contributing to the anti-Russian regime in Ukraine.”
Digitally altered footage of Zelensky’s March 2022 video call with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk showed a pile of white powder on the president’s desk.
The footage quickly went viral, even being shared by conservative American activist Lauren Witzke with the caption: “Zelensky plotting World World III with a big pile of blow on his desk?”
The video was swiftly proven to be fake, as original footage showed no substance on the desk during the call.
In 2023, Russian-linked actors tricked U.S. celebrities, including the actors Elijah Wood and John McGinley, into recording personalized videos on the Cameo platform, urging “Vladimir” to seek help for his drug addiction.
The videos were subsequently altered and shared on social media, according to a report from the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, and painted by Russian state media as genuine pleas to the Ukrainian president.
“Unwitting American actors and others appear to have been asked, likely via video message platforms such as Cameo, to send a message to someone called “Vladimir” pleading with him to seek help for substance abuse,” Microsoft’s report read.
“The videos were then modified to include emojis, links and sometimes the logos of media outlets and circulated through social media channels to advance long-standing false Russian claims that the Ukrainian leader struggles with substance abuse.”
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