Was Russian President Vladimir Putin received by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank in the days following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel? No, that's not true: The claim uses video from a 2020 visit by Putin. The Russian president had not visited the Palestinian territory at the time of writing in October 2023.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by @animeflix75 on October 9, 2023, with a caption (translated into English from Arabic by Lead Stories staff) that read:
Vladimir Putin went to the Arab Republic of Palestine and was received by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sun Oct 22 09:19:36 2023 UTC)
The claim on TikTok circulated widely, as shown here and here, after Hamas launched a massive attack from Gaza on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
Lead Stories conducted a reverse Google Image search (archived here) of several parts of the video on October 22, 2023. The results showed that Putin's visit dates back to January 2020.
The video of Putin's visit (archived here), published on YouTube by VOA News on January 24, 2020, shows the Russian leader meeting with Palestinian President Abbas in the West Bank city of Bethlehem to discuss bilateral relations.
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Sun Oct 22 09:37 2023 UTC)
A Google News search, conducted on October 22, 2023, for the previous 12 months, with the keywords "Putin," "Visit," "Palestine" and "Mahmud Abbas" (archived here), found no credible reports from any national and international news outlets that confirmed a recent visit by the Russian president. Lead Stories staff also checked Putin's trips record in 2023 and, at the time of writing, found no record of a trip to the region in October 2023.
