Amidst the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, a screengrab of Zee News that quotes Russian President Vladimir Putin referring to PM Modi as his childhood friend, is being widely shared on social media. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Image of a screengrab of Zee News saying Putin called Modi his childhood friend.
Fact: There is no evidence to show that Zee News had reported that Vladimir Putin referred to PM Narendra Modi his childhood friend. The image of the screengrab is altered as there were couple of inconsistencies in the Hindi words used. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We could not find any news reports from Zee News which say that Vladimir Putin had referred to PM Narendra Modi as his childhood friend. We could not find any credible news reports which say that Putin had called Modi his childhood friend. Such a report was not published by Zee News in YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter.
When the image in the post is carefully looked at, the Hindi words used in the image have been spelled incorrectly. The words PM (पीएम) and Ukraine (यूक्रेन) have been spelled wrongly as पिएम and युक्रेन. There are even inconsistencies in the written text. It was written as ‘पिएम’ in the main headline, whereas it was written as ‘पीएम’ in the scrolling below. Zee News used consistent language when it reported on Modi’s phone call with Putin on the Ukraine issue. And there was no mention of Putin calling PM Modi as his childhood friend.
Amidst the Russia-Ukraine crisis, India has mostly remained neutral. India has maintained best of relations with the countries concerned and it has been in favour of diplomatic dialogue as the only way forward. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin immediately after Russia’s military operations on Ukraine and appealed for an ‘immediate cessation of Violence’.
To sum it up, morphed image is shared as Zee News report stating that Putin referred to PM Modi as his childhood friend.
