Russian propaganda sharing fake about Hitler's car bought by Zelensky

Propagandists created fake website to promote disinformation and used old internet photo of car to discredit Ukraine's president

Reports have recently emerged on the English-language website Seattle Tribune saying that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky allegedly purchased a car worth about $15 million that previously belonged to Adolf Hitler. The story claims that the car was allegedly spotted in Kyiv on October 6, when Zelensky was getting out of it. For "evidence," the propagandists added a screenshot allegedly from one Telegram channel, which published a photo of a car "parked" near the building of the President's Office. The article links the purchase of the car with Zelensky's recent diplomatic trip to the United States, during which a new $7.9 billion aid package for Ukraine was announced.

Subsequently, this disinformation was spread through English-language accounts on the social media platform X.

This is a fake. The website Seattle Tribune, where the article was published, is fake and was registered on October 3, only four days before this fake began to be circulated. The name of the article's author was not indicated.

In addition, the Telegram channel, a screenshot from which was published by the propagandists on the Seattle Tribune website, did not publish a post with a photo of Hitler's car. Using the TGStat service, which allows you to review deleted posts on Telegram channels, we found out that there was never such a post.

The picture with the car referred to by the propagandists is fake. Using a graphic editor, they combined two separate photos that can be found in the public domain.

For this, they used a photo of the President's Office building, taken on August 4, 2021. This picture served as the background of the fake photo.

Fakers took a photo of Hitler's car from another illustration. This can be seen in the reflection in a car door and the glare on the wheels.

In addition, on October 6, when , the photo was allegedly taken according to propagandists, gloomy and rainy weather was observed in Kyiv. On this day, the Ukrainian capital even recorded a record amount of precipitation for this date since 1970. However, a sunny day is observed in the fake picture.

Through such fakes, Russian propaganda tries to discredit the Ukrainian authorities in the eyes of international partners and society. Such fakes are aimed at sowing distrust in Ukrainian officials and convincing the Western audience of improper use of foreign aid by Ukraine.

Earlier, Ukrinform refuted an enemy fake that Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska bought an exclusive car worth EUR 4.5 million, which was spread by propagandists ahead of the NATO summit.

Dmytro Badrak