Old TIME magazine cover of White House transforming into a Kremlin-like building goes viral as recent

Time magazine’s cover illustrates White House transforming into a Kremlin-like building is not recent. It was published in May 2017

An animated video depicting the White House mutating into a Kremlin-like building, featuring the distinctive onion domes and red brick of Russia’s Saint Basil’s Cathedral is going viral on social media. Towards the end of the video, the TIME magazine logo fades in above the building. 

The caption of the post states, “Washington has fallen! On the new cover of Time, the Kremlin is sprouting from the White House”.

Let’s check the truth

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Fact Check-

At first, we checked for the viral image on the TIME magazine front page archive for 2025 editions, to verify whether they had featured this image. The cover circulating online is not featured in TIME’s archive of 2025 covers.

The TIME magazine cover from 10 February 10, 2025 shows Trump at the desk in the Oval Office and the latest issue features American actor and playwright Colman Domingo holding a bouquet of flowers on the cover.

Next, we started our investigation with a keyword and reverse image search on Google and the results led us to a New York Post article published on May 2017 with the caption, “Time’s latest cover depicts Kremlin takeover of White House”. 

The report states, “Time magazine’s latest cover highlights the Russian scandals plaguing Trump’s presidency by blending the Kremlin and the White House in one image. It shows the front entrance of the White House on one side and the Kremlin’s ornate towers rising on the other in vivid red”.

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The TIME Magazine has also shared on Twitter the magazine cover with the caption: “TIME’s new cover: How Trump’s loyalty test is straining Washington”. The issue’s feature story was about how Russia had tried to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. 

President Donald Trump’s first term was from January 2017 until January 2021. He was the president at the time the TIME issue was published. 

Conclusion

Fact Crescendo found that the claim made along with the viral video to be Misleading. Time magazine’s cover illustrates White House transforming into a Kremlin-like building is not recent. It was published in May 2017.