Putin interview clip mistranslated and shared with claim he 'supports Indonesian election frontrunner'

"Putin openly supports Prabowo," reads the Indonesian-language caption of a clip that was viewed more than 936,000 times after being posted on TikTok here on February 16, 2024.

The clip shows Russian President Vladimir Putin being interviewed, with Indonesian-language subtitles that read: "Prabowo is my friend. Prabowo and I will work together for the peace of countries and to fight global injustice. We will work together."

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Screenshot of the false post on TikTok, captured on March 14, 2024

The clip circulated days after Indonesia's presidential election on February 14, 2024. Although official results are only expected on March 20, early vote counts show Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto is on course to win by a wide margin.

The same video has been viewed more than 9,800 times after it was also shared elsewhere on TikTok here, here and here, as well as on short video-sharing app SnackVideo here and here.

While Putin reportedly congratulated Prabowo, the clip does not show him talking about the Indonesian election (archived link).

The clip's subtitles were falsely translated -- Putin was in fact talking about US politics.

'Prefers Biden to Trump'

The video in the false posts contains a watermark for British newspaper The Guardian.

Subsequent Google reverse image searches and a YouTube keyword search found the clip corresponds to a video uploaded to the newspaper's official YouTube channel on February 15, 2024 (archived link).

The portion that has been mistranslated begins at The Guardian video's 32-second mark.

The video is titled "'More predictable': Vladimir Putin says he prefers Joe Biden to Donald Trump". The video's description states Putin was responding to a question posed by a Russian state journalist about which candidate was better for Russia.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video in the false post (left) and the genuine video from The Guardian (right):

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Screenshot comparison between the video in the false post (left) and the original video from The Guardian (right)

The English-language subtitles for the video read: "If we talk about that time when he hit his head over a helicopter when he was going out, show me somebody who has never hit his head against something."

Putin was referring to an incident in June 2023 when Biden hit his head on the door of a helicopter as he was flying back to the White House.

Nowhere in the clip does Putin mention Prabowo. Earlier in the interview, he says Biden is better for Russia because he is more experienced and predictable than Trump --  Biden and Trump are set to face off in the US presidential election in November 2024.

A clip from the same interview was also published by AFP on YouTube on February 15 and the subtitles similarly show Putin was talking about Biden, not Prabowo (archived link).

Putin's remarks in the interview were widely reported by the international press, such as here and here (archived links here and here).

AFP has debunked other false and misleading claims about the 2024 Indonesian elections here.