Russians launch fakes about Zelensky and Ukrainian officials' alleged purchase of real estate abroad
Russia's propaganda machine has recently intensified its campaign to discredit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A report was published on the Italian website Database Italia that the Zelensky family in June purchased a wine estate from English musician Sting, located in the Italian municipality of Figline e Incisa Valdarno, Tuscany region, for around EUR 75 million. Later, the report was picked up by Russian Telegram channels and pro-Kremlin English-language accounts on X.
This is a fake. The local Italian media outlet Corriere Fiorentino found out that such an agreement could not be concluded without the knowledge of the representatives of the municipality.
"I don't know anything about it, but it seems impossible to me. Such an agreement is not concluded without the knowledge of the municipality. In addition, Sting has invested too much in this estate to suddenly leave everything," Dario Picchioni, the councilor for public works of the municipality of Figline e Incisa Valdarno, told the media outlet.
Representatives of the municipality also confirmed in a comment to Ukrinform that they knew nothing about the sale of Sting's estate to the Zelensky family.
The website Database Italia, which spread the fake, has repeatedly appeared in the materials of Italian fact-checkers. In 2020, the Facta.news project wrote that during an emergency in the health care sector, the website launched a powerful advertising campaign of anti-scientific hoaxes and supported the QAnon conspiracy theory.
According to the Center for Countering Disinformation, in 2021 Database Italia was included in the list of websites spreading disinformation in the Italian language.
The content published on the website contains anti-Ukrainian narratives, materials supporting Russia, and fakes, including one about U.S. biolabs.
In addition to the fake about the purchase of real estate by the Zelensky family, Russian Telegram channels published a similar fake video on behalf of the U.S. news site Wired. It says that information about 8,000 real estate properties in 20 countries, registered to 2,000 Ukrainian officials, which the NoRpaC hacker group allegedly obtained, is currently being sold online. All purchase agreements were allegedly concluded after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The video was not published on Wired's official resources. The propagandists designed the video in the format of a U.S. media outlet, so that the fake could look more authentic. In addition, random photos and videos from the public domain were used to create the fake video. In the video, you can see one of the largest and most expensive houses in the United States, a review of which appeared on the YouTube video hosting service two years ago.
Pictures of other homes used by propagandists to create fakes can also be found on various real estate websites.
Through such fakes, Russian propaganda tries to discredit the Ukrainian authorities and sow public distrust of officials. In addition, such forgeries are intended to convince people abroad that Ukraine is mired in corruption schemes and misuses funds received as aid during the war.
Earlier, Ukrinform refuted the fake that Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska bought an exclusive car worth EUR 4.5 million.
Dmytro Badrak
