Does a viral image show Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro captured? No, that's not true: An authentic photo was digitally altered to swap Maduro's head onto the body of a captive. The image originally showed Ukrainian-born pro-Russian businessman and politician Victor Medvedchuk.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on January 3, 2026. It read:
😁The White House has published the first photo of the captured Maduro.
This is what the image shared in the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/front_ukrainian)
The original version of the image predated Donald Trump's January 3, 2026, announcement on Truth Social (archived here) about the capture of the Venezuelan president. The image of Medvedchuk had appeared on the Telegram channel of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on April 12, 2022 (archived here):
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official)
The photo showed Victor Medvedchuk (archived here), who faced treason charges in Ukraine (archived here) but was transferred to Russia (archived here) as a result of a prisoner swap in the fall of 2022.
