Social media is rife with claims Ukraine's president has fled the country to seek refuge in the United States. But are they true?
ADVERTISEMENTMultiple social media users have claimed Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought a mansion in Florida and is now looking to flee or has fled to the United States.
"Volodymyr Zelenskyy has applied for citizenship with the US for when his country falls. But only after the US sent trillions to Ukraine for the failed war efforts," tweeted one X user.
Whether or not to send money to help Ukraine defend itself from Moscow’s full-scale invasion has become a fiercely debated point in the US Congress, with some Republicans pressing to stop aid supplies.
Pro-Kremlin accounts have weaponised this situation to claim that Ukraine's president “has drained the US Treasury dry."
Right-wing activist and former Republican Senate candidate Lauren Witzke has made similar claims in one social media post, viewed nearly 10 million times on X.
In it, Witzke claims Zelenskyy is considering fleeing Ukraine after buying a 20-million-dollar(18m euro) home in Florida.
The post shares a copy of what is said to be the Ukrainian leader's US naturalisation document and pictures of the villa.
But are these claims true?
To verify these claims, The Cube first did a reverse image search of the photos of the mansion.
The home featured in the post is located in Ponte Vedra Beach – more than 300 kilometres from the location of Zelenskyy’s alleged new mansion in Vero Beach, Florida.
As of 20 December, the villa is still on the market listed at nearly $11 million (€10m) on the website Zillow.
In the US, all real estate transaction documents are public and accessible online.
The house in question was bought in 2019 for $6.3m (€5.8). It was sold to a couple from Atlanta who work in finance and are still the current owners, according to public records.
This means the house does not belong Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife, as stated in the social media posts.
As for the document supposedly showing the Ukrainian president's application for citizenship, it is also fake.
Another reverse image search leads to a customisable template available on Reddit.
For the photo, Euronews found that someone had taken it from the official website of the Ukrainian government.
We noticed other discrepancies like the fact that the certificate did not have Zelenskyy’s middle name Oleksandrovych nor his signature, which are all legally required.
As noted by Lachlan Markay, a journalist based in the United States, the disinformation appears to originate from the website DC Weekly, which shares pro-Russian content.
ADVERTISEMENTThe author of the article, Jessica Devlin, is described as an "acclaimed journalist."
However, she has no other published work online and her profile picture turned out to be using the identity of New York-based writer, Judy Batalion.