Fake video shared to claim Zelenskyy was found unconscious in 'LGBTQ club restroom'

What's the claim? 

A video has been widely shared on social media claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was missing for 24 hours and was later found "unconscious in an LGBTQ club toilet."

In the brief five-second video, "Zelenskyy," wearing a white T-shirt and dark pants, is supposedly seen lying on the ground against a green wall, seemingly unconscious or unresponsive. Another person, whose legs and lower torso are visible, stands nearby and shakes the back of Zelenskyy's head to wake him up. Zelenskyy is presented as then waking up and starting to look around. 

The video appears to be in a setting with dim lighting, possibly a hallway or a similar confined space.

On X (formerly Twitter), a user shared this video with the caption: "Breaking News: Unconfirmed reports Zelensky Missing for 24 HOURS found unconscious in LGBTQ club toilet. More news as it emerges." This post has garnered approximately 494,200 views. Archives of such posts can be seen here, here, and here.

Screenshots of the viral video shared online. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

The video also appeared on Facebook (archived posts available here, here, and here.)

However, the video is fake. The original video, which is more than 10 years old, shows the arrest of a man in Russia.

What are the facts?
Upon conducting a reverse image search, we found the original video uploaded on the YouTube channel РИА Новый День (archived here), a Russian news agency, on May 15, 2014. This video, the title of which translates roughly to "Drug Resort at Uralmash," shows an incident in Uralmash, a residential area in northern Yekaterinburg, Russia. 

The original video lasts four minutes and 19 seconds, and the viral segment spans from 1 minute and 10 seconds to 1 minute and 15 seconds timestamp.

The viral video featuring this segment has been altered, likely using face swap technology, to insert Zelenskyy's face in place of the original man's.

The viral clips also feature the city name "EKATERINBURG" in Russian, translating to Yekaterinburg, and the logo "HP 2" in the bottom-left corner, as seen in the original video.

Comparison of a screenshot from the viral video with one from the original footage. (Source: X/YouTube)

The YouTube video's description states that a crew from РИА Новый День was on duty with the rapid response group of the Ordzhonikidze District Police Department. According to the unit, drug addicts had settled in a stairwell of a residential building. The police and the crew responded to the address and found a young man and an underage girl who, it's claimed, had overdosed on drugs.

What happens in the full footage?

The video starts with two police officers driving in a car. They eventually arrive at a building and are seen entering. Inside, the officers find a woman seated on the stairs and an unconscious man lying nearby. The officers speak with the woman in Russian.

When the unconscious man's phone rings, one officer wakes him by shaking his head. This portion of the video, where the officer wakes the man, has been altered to show Zelenskyy's face instead of that of the man in the original video. Following this, the officer interrogates the man.

Further, at the two minute 54 second mark, the police officers are seen handcuffing the man. By the three minute 47 second mark, the man can be seen being seated in a police van.

Further, we also found a news report published on May 15, 2014, by РИА Новый День that cited the same YouTube video and titled "Typical Uralmash – Two 'Salt' Drug Addicts Set Up a Den Right on the Stairwell (VIDEO)." The report provided similar details, alleging that a young man and an underage girl had overdosed on drugs, with the man having lain down to rest on the staircase. It also reported that a drug was found nearby.

The verdict

A fake video, originally showing a man allegedly on drugs and being woken up by a police officer in Russia, has been shared with the false claim that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was missing for 24 hours and later found "unconscious in an LGBTQ club toilet." The original subject's face in the video has been swapped with Zelenskyy's face. Therefore, we mark this claim as fake.