A website established by a former US Marine who resides in Russia has fueled rumors that Volodymyr Zelensky used funds from US aid programs to buy two opulent ships.
Even with the untrue assertion, the disinformation campaign was effective. It gained popularity online and was reiterated by US Congressmen who were deciding how much money to spend on the military.
It was an astonishing claim: Mr. Zelensky paid $75 million (£59 million) for two yachts using the proxies of two advisers.
Not only has the Ukrainian government categorically refuted the account, but the two aforementioned ships have not even been put up for sale.
Members of the US Congress were informed of the report, even though it was untrue, and they stated that any decision regarding more help to Ukraine would have to wait until next year.
Some people are fiercely against more assistance.
Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made the following statement on X, formerly Twitter: “Anyone who votes to fund Ukraine is funding the most corrupt money scheme of any foreign war in our country’s history.”
She provided a link to an article on the yacht rumor.
Republican senator Tom Tillis, who favors military assistance to Ukraine, said to CNN not long after lawmakers met behind closed doors with Mr. Zelensky last week.
“I think the notion of corruption came up because some have said we can’t do it, because people will buy yachts with the money,” said Tillis. “[Mr Zelensky] disabused people of those notions.”
- D. Vance, a fellow Republican senator who has clashed with Mr. Tillis, has also brought up Mr. Zelensky and ships in the same breath.
On a podcast with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, Mr. Vance talked about budget concerns and stated, “There are those who would reduce Social Security, send our grandparents into poverty, why? in order for one of Zelensky’s ministers to purchase a larger yacht?
While the yacht rumor is untrue, the BBC has found that a Russia-affiliated website posing as a Washington-based entity greatly aided the story’s dissemination.
It is a “likely purpose-built tool for narrative laundering with links to the Russian government,” according to academics.
The Russian-founded “Washington” website
The tale originally surfaced on a little-known YouTube channel in late November, with only a few subscribers and a single video in its stream.
The following day, it was discovered by DC Weekly, along with images of the two yachts, Lucky Me and My Legacy, and documentation allegedly verifying the boats’ sale to Zelensky’s allies.
However, the luxury yacht brokers who have both boats up for sale have denied the accusations. It looks like the sales documentation are fakes. Moreover, Lucky Me and My Legacy are still for sale, having not been acquired by Zelensky or his close advisors.
You can still purchase The Lucky Me.
A flurry of internet conjecture was sparked by the DC Weekly report, which was referenced in content on several platforms and linked to by numerous sites.
The website is not, however, a weekly magazine as the name would imply, nor is it headquartered in the US capital.
DC Weekly was founded by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine and Florida police officer who relocated to Russia in 2016, according to research by Clemson University disinformation experts Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren.
Mr. Dougan worked as a deputy with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office for three years. Following his departure in 2009, he launched a website where he disseminated rumors about his previous employers.
He has rebranded himself as a journalist covering the invasion of Ukraine since coming to Russia, and he has disseminated a lot of unfounded rumors, such as the idea that Russia was trying to destroy biological weapons labs.
The Clemson researchers found that a lot of the news articles in DC Weekly are altered by artificial intelligence algorithms after being lifted verbatim from other websites. The “reporters” on the site use photoshopped headshots from other websites with fictitious names.
There are questionable original reports mixed in with the modified tales, which are ostensibly intended to give the website a more credible appearance.
One such tale was the beginning of the yacht claim, which the Clemson researchers followed as it gained widespread traction following the publication of DC Weekly’s version.
The site and several of Mr. Dougan’s other websites were still connected to the same server, according to evidence gathered by the researchers. Additionally, BBC Verify discovered that a portion of the DC Weekly website is housed on a Moscow server.
When Mr. Dougan gave many lectures at an academy connected to the Russian Foreign Ministry earlier this year, it was revealed that he was a commentator for DC Weekly.
“It is pretty obvious to me that Dougan has been involved with DC Weekly for a long time, and remains connected to the infrastructure behind it,” said Warren.
Artificial intelligence-rewritten news articles as well as original reports with inaccurate information can be found in DC Weekly.
Through text message, Mr. Dougan stated that he “emphatically denies these assertions” that the DC Weekly was sold for $3,000 a number of years ago. He claimed that because of financial sanctions against Russia, he can’t remember who he sold it to and that he misplaced the papers after being blocked from payment platforms and email accounts. He claims to be unrelated to the site’s current operations.
Scholars claim that the website is a component of a much bigger propaganda apparatus that supports Russia.
“Whether this one particular guy is behind it doesn’t really matter much,” said Mr. Warren. “The key point is that it is an important element in a very substantial and effective pro-Russian influence operation that needs to be exposed and understood.”
Regarding the DC Weekly piece, the President’s Office of Ukraine stated: “Everything that is stated in this article is false. Zelensky and his kin have never had a yacht and never will.”
We reached out to Mr. Tillis and Ms. Greene for their comments.
“Everyone in the West recognized for years that Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” a representative for Mr. Vance stated. It seems that everyone forgot that as soon as we began providing them with foreign help worth billions of dollars.”
Costume jewellery
The yacht story adds fictitious tales to pre-existing worries about corruption, a persistent issue in Ukraine. One of the requirements for the nation to join Western organizations like the European Union is to address it.
Ukraine is ranked 116th out of 180 nations in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, although recent initiatives have greatly improved the country’s ranking.
However, in comparison to the online commotion surrounding fabricated tales supported by fictitious documents and dubious social media profiles, the nation’s actual and persistent corruption problems have received very little attention.
A widely circulated rumor on social media in October claimed that while President Zelensky of Ukraine was in the city giving a speech to the United Nations, his wife spent a fortune on jewelry in New York.
The woman flashed a phony $1.1 million receipt before claiming Mrs. Zelenska had fired her.
Similar to the yacht rumor, this allegation was first made on a YouTube channel that had just one video and relatively few followers. One of the women in the video claimed to be from Benin. She said she worked on Fifth Avenue at Cartier in New York.
The woman displayed a 22 September receipt bearing Mrs. Zelensky’s name and a $1.1 million charge for a necklace, bracelet, and earrings.
The woman in the video and images from a Russian woman’s social media pages closely matched, according to facial recognition software. Upon examining the woman’s photos, it seemed that she was the same individual shown in the YouTube video.
The tale gained popularity on Telegram, Facebook, and TikTok. “Best use of UK taxpayers money ever” was the comment left on it by the Russian embassy in the UK’s X account.
However, the receipt is obviously a fake. Mr. and Mrs. Zelensky left New York on September 21 and made their way to Canada.
DC Weekly, an English-language website, played a significant role in the rumor’s dissemination.
President Zelensky and Olena Zelenska arrived in Canada on September 21. According to a BBC Verify report, the Clemson researchers discovered a similar pattern in several DC Weekly pieces published between August and December of this year.
The articles made up stories alleging, among other things, that Prince Andrew visited Ukraine covertly, that Hamas received weapons from Ukraine, that an American nonprofit organization harvested organs there, and that Zelensky’s government permitted Western businesses to dispose of toxic waste on Ukrainian farms.
Reports on DC Weekly were frequently released days after the initial charges surfaced on YouTube.
Some of the accusations, such as those about Cartier jewelry and boats, were published not only on DC Weekly but also on a number of English-language websites supporting the Kremlin and reputable African news outlets that accept “sponsored” (paid-for) content.
A few of the articles were reposted by other accounts and media. However, the DC Weekly team seems to have found success with the yacht story—some of the most influential members of the US Congress have echoed their accusations—something they had not done before.
