The spitting claim doesn't hold up, and the clip looks like a recycled story. RT's post from today is a 19-second video, and I couldn't find any independent source confirming a spit. The record points elsewhere. On 17 April 2026 the King visited Lviv, and Russian outlets spread a trimmed video claiming he refused Zelensky's handshake. Ukrinform reported that the full footage on YouTube shows the two shaking hands, and Misbar rated the April version misleading. Fact-checkers now describe today's clip as a cut-down of that same Lviv meeting. The Swedish royal court's head of information, Margareta Thorgren, called the Russian framing "wrong and ugly", as Sweden Herald reported. A blurred frame can't settle whether someone spat, but the uncut footage settles the handshake. When a short clip goes viral, the first step is finding the longer original, which is the same approach as the Ukrinform fact-check on the April video.
🕒 As of October 2026
