The global sentiment on the Ukraine war is palpable on social media. From statuses to images, the Internet is flooded with opinions and commentary. One picture - that appeared to show a Time magazine cover on the invasion - has gone viral in the last few days. The cover shows Russia's Vladimir Putin with German dictator Adolf Hiter's moustache - widely referred to as 'Putler'.
But there's only one problem. Many people said it was Time Magazine's latest cover, except it wasn't.
Time's latest cover on one of the worst wars in Europe in the recent hitory shows a tank with troops. "The Return of History - How Putin Shattered Europe's Dream," it reads. The "Putler" cover has the same text. Putin has been using the ‘Nazi’ narrative to justify the attack on Ukraine.
A graphic designer on Monday tweeted to say that he had designed the fake cover. “I created the TIME cover artwork on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. The image is one out of a sequence of three. I wanted to create something that added to the conversation around the invasion of Ukraine and captured the public mood," Patrick Mulder wrote with a clarification note.
{{/usCountry}}A graphic designer on Monday tweeted to say that he had designed the fake cover. “I created the TIME cover artwork on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. The image is one out of a sequence of three. I wanted to create something that added to the conversation around the invasion of Ukraine and captured the public mood," Patrick Mulder wrote with a clarification note.
{{/usCountry}}“It wasn’t originally intended to be a TIME cover. The finished image was so powerful, I felt that it deserved to be framed in an equally powerful way. I feel as though the official cover by TIME was uninspired and lacked conviction given the unprecedented events unfolding before our eyes," he wrote further.
As the cover was widely shared across Twitter, his initial tweet was marked as manipulated media.
Russia's offensive in Ukraine has entered the sixth day and the first round of ceasefire talks made no headway on Monday. The UNGA is holding a rare assembly session to pressure Moscow to take back its troops.
But the onslaught continues with the second largest city in Ukraine - Kharviv - under attack. 70 Ukraine soldiers were killed on Tuesday when Russian artillery hit a military base in the city of Okhtyrka.
(With inputs from AP, Reuters)