Did the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Olena Zelenska, buy herself a €4.5 million Bugatti Turbillon car during her visit to France for the 80th anniversary of the landing? This is what dozens of Internet users have been wrongly claiming on social networks in recent hours. This fake news, supported by falsified documents, aims to discredit the Ukrainian president and his family, both in Ukraine and in the West.
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This rumor first appeared online on a mysterious website called ” Hidden Truth ” The article in question claims that Olena Zelenska, the wife of the Ukrainian president, would be ” became the first owner of the brand new Bugatti Turbillon “, a hypercar estimated at nearly 5 million euros.
At first glance, several elements strongly suggest that the veracity of the information disseminated on this site is doubtful. The layout, the illustrations and the presence of prompt – the response displayed by an artificial intelligence (AI) after an Internet user’s order – show that Most content is generated by AI.
An open source search on the domain name used by ” Hidden Truth ” shows that the site was registered very recently, on January 22, 2024, surely with the aim of launching and giving credibility to this false information targeting Olena Zelenska.
In the article in question, the author publishes, as evidence, a photo of an invoice bearing the Bugatti logo, as well as an alleged testimony from an employee of the luxury car brand. However, these two documents are fakes. On the invoice, first of all, we can easily see several gross errors. The address of the dealership is misspelled, “Neuilly-sur-Seine” with a single L, instead of “Neuilly-sur-Seine” with two Ls. We also note the absence of legal notices, the Siret number in particular, and the currency of payment, while French law requires their presence.
In addition, the Parisian Bugatti dealership denied the information in a statement : ” The Car Lovers Group strongly denies both the existence of this transaction and the existence of this invoice. Not only are the mandatory legal notices missing from the invoice, but the price of the vehicle is also incorrect, the price of the options and their descriptions are inaccurate and inconsistent, the graphic charter is outdated, and the Car Lovers Group would never have allowed the publication of such a document. This erroneous information will, we hope, attract everyone’s attention. The Car Lovers Group has already taken legal action regarding the facts set out above by filing a criminal complaint for forgery, use of forgery, identity theft and defamation, in particular. Once again, the Car Lovers Group strongly denounces this campaign of disinformation. »
Regarding the video testimony, presented as an Instagram story published on a private account, several visual elements, the movement of the lips and eyes in particular, show that it is surely a deep fake.
Although fabricated, these fake documents have accumulated several million views on social networks. Analysis of their propagation shows that pro-Russian propaganda accounts, repeatedly pinned in fact-checking articles, have made this false information viral.
Fake news can also be found on Russian-language Telegram channels directly linked to Kremlin propaganda.
Rather well done, with a fake online media outlet, a deep fake and a falsified invoice, this fake news is part of a larger disinformation campaign that has been seeking, for months, to demonize the family of Volodymyr Zelensky, in Ukraine and in the West. Olena Zelenska had already been wrongly accused of having spent over a million euros in a New York jewelry store. As for Volodymyr Zelensky, he was recently accused, also wrongly, to afford luxurious villas and yachts.