Russian propaganda continues to create fakes about Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. This time, pro-Russian Telegram channels shared fake news that Zelenskyy bought apartments in Dubai costing $3,2 million as a gift for his mother’s 74th birthday.
What happened?
Since June 5, pro-Russian Telegram channels, including “Shkvarka 2.0,” “Uncle Slava,” “Ostashko! Important,” “Olesya Loseva,” and “Tsargrad TV” have shared the news with the story of Al Arabiya TV channel about the present from Zelenskyy to his mother. According to the fake, the Ukrainian president bought apartments on the 11th floor of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper that cost $3,2 million.
Pro-Russian channels referred to alchourouk.com, a resource that said these 200-square-meters apartments are part of Armani Residences. Someone bought it on September 16, the same day as the birthday of Zelenskyy’s mother.
Authors offer these “news” with the Al Arabiya logo and Russian subtitles.
“The state TV channel of Saudi Arabia informed that an apartment in the Burj Khalifa, the highest building in the world, was found in the Dubai real estate register. Rymma Zelenska has owned this apartment since September 16, 2024,” said the pro-Russian Telegram channel.
The Russian media, including “Tsargrad,” “Lenta.ru,” “EaDaily,” “Gazeta.ru,” and others, actively shared this post. They also spread the fake on social media, including X (in English and Spanish), Facebook, and Instagram.
On June 4, Johnny Midnight‘s account on X posted (1, 2) a video with English subtitles and comments, which means the fake piece reached the foreign audience directly. The post reached over 350,000 views and had 1,000 reposts in a day.
Alchourouk.com published the news on June 2 without evidence, linking unknown “journalists” and “reports” as sources.
Analysis
First, we analyzed the official resources of the Al Arabiya TV channel — it has an official website and X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok social media accounts.
We also checked the official social media accounts of Sohaib Charair (1, 2, 3), the TV host whose footage appears at the beginning of the fake video.
We didn’t find any relevant content about Zelenskyy buying apartments in Dubai on the TV channel’s resources or on Charair’s social media.
Second, we analyzed the original videos published on TV channel’s social media (1, 2, 3, 4) because the post authors used the same format (logo and the size of the frame). The latter contains an outro that TV channels use for live broadcasts, not for social media, which means the video was fabricated.
The difference in the date elements — the font and animation — suggests that the video is fake, too.
A fake video starts with the two-second footage with Sohaib Charair, which abruptly ends, and switches to another video with an English voiceover.
The video contains publicly available photos and videos of Zelenskyy and his mother, the footage of apartments and photo of documents with the “INITIAL CONTRACT OF SALE” headline that supposedly confirms the apartments’ purchase.
Next, we checked the existence of the document about the real estate ownership with the number “76421” for 2024 on the website of the Dubai Land Department (DLD).
We used a special service that helped us get information about real estate in Dubai. According to the data, the real certificate registered for the land in the housing estate of Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid in Dubai, not in the Burj Khalifa skyscraper.
We checked the information about Armani Residences apartments and found no relevant documents in the register. Also, the type of real estate “2 B/R” (outlined in the fake documents) doesn’t exist. According to the DLD website, the relevant type of real estate for apartments is “Unit.”
Finally, we analyzed the market and real estate documentation in Dubai. We found out that the “INITIAL CONTRACT OF SALE” document is usually used at the contract called “Oqood.” It’s used for buying real estate on a building stage works; it serves as a guarantee for buyers and builders alike (1, 2, 3).
At the same time, the “Title deed” certificate is the real document about ownership rights. The type of contract on the image couldn’t be applied for Armani Residences apartments (1, 2, 3, 4) in Burj Khalifa in 2024 because the skyscraper’s construction was completed in 2009.
So, the video about Zelenskyy, who supposedly bought apartments in Dubai for $3,2 million as a gift for his mother’s 74th birthday, is fake.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Anna Ormanzhy
Translation to English: Elza Diachenko
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