Did Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wife, Olena Zelenska become Ist owner of $4.8 mln Bugatti Tourbillon? Is it Kremlin’s AI spin?

The buzz about a luxury car purportedly purchased by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's wife, Olena Zelenska, has added a new twist to a slew of corruption accusations against the couple.

The latest allegation came from a French website, which posted the invoice for the purchase of a Bugatti Tourbillon. However, fact-checkers have identified the video supporting the claim as a deepfake, linked to known Kremlin propagandists.

In December 2022, social media was abuzz with reports alleging that during a visit to Paris, Zelenska indulged in an extravagant shopping spree, spending $42,500. A Newsweek investigation later debunked these reports.

President Zelensky was also accused of amassing a property portfolio across the U.S., Italy, the U.K., and France, and even claimed that the first lady had purchased a private island. This, too was debunked, as per the report.

A French-language website, Verité Cachée ("Hidden Truth"), published an article titled "Olena Zelenska became the first owner of the all-new Bugatti Tourbillon." The report alleged that during their recent visit to France for the 75th-anniversary commemorations of the D-Day Normandy landings, the Zelenskyys received a private presentation of the vehicle from Bugatti.

The article claimed that Olena Zelenska was "impressed" with the car and placed an order for one of the first 250 cars planned for production, priced at 4.5 million euros ($4.8 million). The publication even posted what it claimed was a copy of the invoice for the car, which is to be available in 2026.

Fact check

The French website featured a video purportedly showing Jacques Bertin, an employee of the Bugatti dealership in Paris. This video, however, was amplified by other dubious websites and the X user 'Aussie Cossack,' a pro-Putin YouTuber and commentator.

A post on X identified the video as a deepfake, casting doubt on the authenticity of both the speaker and the invoice. "This video is a deepfake video. This guy is not real and this was never said," the post stated. It also described 'Aussie Cossack' as Simeon Boikov, "a known Kremlin propagandist."

Kyle Glen from the Center for Information Resilience, an organization countering disinformation, noted on X that "the video is obviously AI-generated but that's not the best thing about this ludicrous claim."

"The operators of the website are so lazy that they haven't even removed the instructions from their Russian handlers," Glen added, pointing out explicit instructions within an article about a new Ukrainian drone, showing clear biases favouring Trump and Russia, while opposing the war in Ukraine and pharmaceutical companies.

The Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation also weighed in, noting that the French website was only created on June 22, 2024, and contained pro-Russian articles about the war in Ukraine. They highlighted that the supposed Bugatti employee had only four posts on Instagram, with the first one published just days before the claim surfaced. Signs of artificial content generation were evident in the video, as per a Newsweek report.

"Russian propagandists launched this fake before the NATO summit to discredit Ukraine's top leadership in the international arena," the Ukrainian Center stated.

The claim that Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, spent millions on a luxury car appeared on a website flagged by Ukrainian disinformation watchdogs as newly established. 

Cybernews.com described the video as part of a "carefully crafted propaganda campaign, most likely of Russian origin", aimed at discrediting Ukraine and curtailing international support. The site also warned of expected propaganda campaigns and cyberattacks targeting the upcoming NATO summit and the Paris Olympics.