Russian propaganda spreading fake about donations from Kolomoisky, Boholiubov and Zhevaho to Trump's election campaign

Propagandists faked a BBC news story about their alleged $8M cryptocurrency donations

Russian media outlets, pro-war Telegram channels and pro-Russian accounts on X are sharing videos with the BBC logo and animation design. A news video claims that Kostiantyn Zhevaho, Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadii Boholiubov allegedly donated more than $8 million in cryptocurrency to Donald Trump's election campaign. It also adds that Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian investigative journalist at The Insider and Bellingcat, allegedly made this information public.

This is a fake. Grozev did not conduct such an investigation, and BBC journalists did not produce such a news story. It is not there, neither on the official website of the BBC nor in the social media accounts of the British media outlet. Similarly, there is no information about the contributions of Ukrainian businessmen to the fund to support Donald Trump on the official websites of Bellingcat or The Insider and on the social networks of the Bulgarian journalist.

The video was edited using photos and videos that can be found in the public domain, including these photos of U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The images of Ihor Kolomoisky and Christo Grozev were edited by graphic editors, but their original photos are also quite easy to find on the internet.

U.S. federal law directly prohibits foreigners or companies with foreign capital from making contributions to the funds of candidates for electoral positions.

U.S. law allows the donation of cryptocurrency to a fund supporting presidential candidates, and there have indeed already been many contributions in the form of electronic money to Donald Trump's campaign. However, according to The Wall Street Journal, Trump received only $3 million worth of crypto donations. However, the propagandists invented a donation of as much as $8 million from Zhevaho, Kolomoisky and Boholiubov.

Kolomoisky is in a Ukrainian pre-trial detention center and is on trial in a number of criminal cases. Zhevaho was arrested in absentia, and Bojoliubov was recently declared a suspect by the State Bureau of Investigation.

In 2021, the United States imposed sanctions against Kolomoisky due to his involvement in significant corruption.

Even earlier, U.S. prosecutors accused Kolomoisky and Boholiubov of using illegally appropriated funds to purchase real estate in the United States.

Andriy Olenin