Russian propaganda regularly produces fake videos using the logos of famous international media. This time, they’ve spread a video with the DW logo, which talks about a Ukrainian refugee burning his Tesla auto near a manufacturing plant in Germany as a protest against Elon Musk “shutting down USAID.” Our fact-checking department debunked this fake.
What happened?
On Feb 11, Telegram channels that often produce Russian propaganda, such as “Медведь” (“Bear”), “Одесса Zа Победу!” (“Odessa for victory”), and others posted a video with a logo of a broadcaster DW.
The video dated Feb 10 talks about a Ukrainian refugee setting his Tesla car on fire near the Gigafactory 4 Tesla plant near Berlin, Germany. He did it, as the video says, as a protest against Elon Musk’s move to shut down USAID, a foreign development aid organization that helped Ukraine and other countries. The man was reportedly detained, and now he’s facing deportation and a penalty of €15,000.
The news was also shared on Facebook (archive).
Analysis
First, we’ve looked through the content on Deutsche Welle’s official resources (DW). The English department of DW (the logo of which seems to be included in the video) has an official website, Facebook, Instagram, and X accounts, and a YouTube channel. We’ve also checked the news and videos of the German-language department of DW.
We figured out that neither video nor news with the corresponding context was published DW. Moreover, as of Feb 11, 2025, the latest publications mentioning Elon Musk, the Tesla plant in Germany, and protests were published by English DW in the spring and summer of 2024. These articles were talking about the ecoactivists’ protests against Elon Musk’s plans to expand Tesla’s manufacturing factory and a clear nearby wooded area for an upcoming expansion (1, 2, 3).
We’ve compared the video shared in Telegram with the original videos released by DW—the video shared in Telegram doesn’t fit DW’s design standard video content. The logo and other information in the upper left part of the screen are different. There are significant changes to the way the date is displayed (another icon for the calendar is used), the font and text format are different, and the location is lacking.
Similarly, the design of subtitles is different: the Telegram post video uses another font and text color.
Frame-by-frame analysis of the video didn’t reveal any connection with the events described by Telegram authors. The latter has video clips from different events and publicly available photos and videos related to the Tesla plant. But that’s not the plant near Berlin in Germany. The Tesla plant in the video is located in the Netherlands, and the design of the plant’s building is different.
Finally, we wrote to DW and asked for clarification. Editor Fabian Roesel confirmed to us that the video is fake.
“After consulting with our fact checking team, I can confirm that you are correct in your assessment: the video is not produced by Dw. It does not correspond to our style guide: the font, logo placement and the date do not match. It is therefore a fake,” Roesel said.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Anna Ormanzhy
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