The British Embassy in Ukraine has been forced to deny rumours that King Charles III has died after Kremlin-approved state media channels, some with millions of followers on social media, began spreading the fake news.
The first false claims appeared out of nowhere on the Telegram messenger service on Monday afternoon. A photoshopped image with the Buckingham Palace logo on the top read: “The following announcement is made by royal communications. The King passed away unexpectedly yesterday afternoon.”
Monday’s date was then posted on the bottom of the fake letter, which appears to have been modelled on the palace’s announcement of the late queen’s death that said: “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.”
Multiple smaller media sites, including a Telegram channel used by Vedomosti, once Russia’s most respected business newspaper, initially shared this post. All cited “media reports” as evidence of the fake story.
Several of Russia’s most followed state media sites quickly picked up the story, posting a picture of King Charles in military uniform.
“British King Charles III died at the age of 75, media reports,” wrote Readovka, a Telegram channel with more than 2 million followers.
“Russian media reported the death of British King Charles III with reference to a document allegedly published by Buckingham Palace,” wrote Baza, another channel with roughly 1.2 million followers.
Within minutes, both channels either edited their original posts (in the case of Baza) or issued corrections (in the case of Readovka) stating that the story had “not yet been confirmed by official sources”. And half an hour later, Tass, the Russian government-owned news agency, claimed they had spoken to Buckingham Palace, who had confirmed the King “continues to perform work duties and attend to private affairs”.
