SVT has investigated the claims presented on Russian television.
The claim spread to the world this week that the president of Ukraine to Volodymyr Zelensky the family would have bought a luxury villa on the shore of the Red Sea in Egypt with aid money from Western countries.
Swedish television investigated the matter SVT tellsthat the statement is not true.
Russian state television’s popular talk show “60 Minutes” claimed on Monday that Zelenskyi had bought a villa in the tourist center of El Gouna in the name of his mother-in-law. The price of the deal was claimed to be more than 4.5 million dollars.
– Zelenskyi has shown the West that corrupt Ukrainian rulers should not be given any money, said the program host and MP Yevgeny Popov according to SVT.
The real estate company denies the deal
The claims of the “60 Minutes” program are based, among other things, on a video published on YouTube by an alleged Egyptian investigative journalist, says SVT.
On video Mohammed Al-Alawi -man presents photos of a house in El Gouna and claims that he has obtained a deed of sale, which proves that Zelenskyi’s mother-in-law bought the said villa.
Later, the Nigerian online magazine Punch published the alleged transaction book, citing Al-Alawi.
SVT contacted the real estate developer Orascom mentioned in the documents, which owns the El Gouna tourist center.
Orascom said that there is no evidence in their archives that Zelenskyi or his family own the property in El Gouna.
According to Orascom, the alleged villa is owned by an Egyptian family and there is no documentation of the transfer of ownership.
– We confirm that the publications are not true and appear to be fake, Orascom wrote to SVT.
Vague faces in the background
Egyptian investigative journalists told SVT that Al-Alawi is an unknown figure to them.
SVT asked the editor-in-chief of the Nigerian online magazine Punch about the sources of the story about the alleged transaction book. Punch then removed the article from its pages.
A source working at Punch told SVT, that the article about the deed of sale had been published as paid content. According to the source, the author was the director of an alleged Ghanaian company. SVT could not find a company operating under that name in the Ghana Land Registry.
SVT could not find out which party is behind the allegations against the Zelenskys.