Fact Check: Is Putin’s Image With Hitler Moustache On Time Magazine Real?

By OB Bureau On Mar 1, 2022

New Delhi: Social media users recently came across some TIME Magazine covers comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin with Hitler. The two images show the Russian president with German dictator Adolf Hitler’s famous shoebrush moustache and the Nazi symbol overlayed on his forehead.

It turns out that no such covers were printed by it and both the viral images are morphed. They were actually created as artworks by a graphic designer. Reuters did a fact check.

Time magazine never published a cover comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. The image was created by a graphic designer as a sequence of artworks about the invasion of Ukraine https://t.co/1iHVwzfIps

— Reuters Fact Check (@ReutersFacts) February 28, 2022

One of the images shows Hitler’s moustache overlayed onto Putin’s face.

The text on the cover reads is – “The Return Of History.” The subheading reads: “How Putin Shattered Europe’s Dreams.”

Here’s how some users who thought the image was real reacted.

“TIME magazine joins the global Putler wave. It says much about the scale of Putin’s crimes in Ukraine that comparisons between the Nazi and Kremlin dictators have now gone mainstream and no longer seems excessive,” a user had tweeted.

“Time Magazine cover equates Putin with Hitler, as does everyone else #UkraineRussiaWar,” wrote another.

The fact that the images were fake was clarified by graphic designer Patrick Mulder, who took to Twitter on February 28 to confirm that he had created the designs.

My TIME artwork has gone viral – so I thought it would be appropriate for me to write a little about it. The image is one out of a sequence of three I created on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. I felt the official cover by TIME was uninspired and lacked conviction. pic.twitter.com/m5P5rorqgt

— Patrick Mulder 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@MrPatrickMulder) February 28, 2022

I wanted to create something that added to the conversation around the invasion of Ukraine and captured the public mood. 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.

— Patrick Mulder 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@MrPatrickMulder) February 28, 2022

“My TIME artwork has gone viral – so I thought it would be appropriate for me to write a little about it. The image is one out of a sequence of three I created on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. I felt the official cover by TIME was uninspired and lacked conviction,” Mulder tweeted.

“I wanted to create something that added to the conversation around the invasion of Ukraine and captured the public mood. 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,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet.

The designer also released a statement, saying he created the artwork on the day Russia invaded Ukraine.