Images Claiming To Show the Annual NATO Summit Are Altered
The Claim
The pictures depict the NATO Summit on June 29, 2022.
News posted on
Emerging story
Social media users have recently circulated images depicting NATO countries’ leaders standing next to paintings described as “weird,” “dark,” and “Masonic.” The users claim these images were captured during the NATO summit held in Madrid on June 29, 2022.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar has investigated the claim and found it to be misleading. The images are digitally altered and do not depict where the NATO summit took place in Madrid.
Altered Pictures of the NATO Summit
Our team conducted a Google Image Reverse Search and discovered that the images were not authentic. They are digitally manipulated to edit the paintings. The original photos were taken during the NATO leaders’ visit to Madrid’s El Prado Museum at the organization’s annual summit. However, the pictures do not show the actual meeting's location in Madrid.
On the sidelines of the summit, the NATO world leaders visited El Prado Museum in Madrid for an official dinner on June 29. According to Artnet News, the leaders were spotted cruising around and taking selfies at the Spanish historical institution of fine arts. The group attended a concert by the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and was served dinner by a Spanish chef who went to Ukraine during the first month of the war to volunteer.
El Prado Museum in Madrid
El Prado Museum opened to the public in November 1819 as the Royal Museum of Painting and Sculpture. The institution aims to attract social groups to reflect the future and challenges of ancient painting and encourages gender and minority research studies. The museum is home to many masterpieces by significant artists like Francisco Goya, Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, and Diego Velázquez.
The Annual NATO Summit
The NATO Summit 2022 took place in Madrid, Spain, from June 28 to June 30, to discuss important issues facing the NATO countries and ended with decisions to transform and strengthen the organization. Finland and Sweden were also invited to join the alliance as NATO’s closest partners. The annual summit also ended with an agreement on long-term support for Ukraine.
Twenty-two of NATO members also agreed to launch the “NATO Innovation Fund,” which aims to invest 1 billion euros in startups and other venture capital funds to develop emerging technologies for civilian and military use. However, the summit ended amid a wave of criticism of “the military alliance’s increasingly aggressive security policies unveiled at the meeting.”
Media outlets reported on thousands of anti-NATO demonstrators who took to the street in Madrid, calling for US-led NATO to be dissolved and for the military bases maintained by the United States in Spain to be closed. The demonstrators raised banners with slogans: “No to NATO, No to War, For Peace.”
Read More:
El Diario Did Not Say Salah Would Be Sanctioned for Not Supporting Homosexuality
CNN's Battlefield Breastfeeding Headline Is Fake
