At the beginning of April 2023, many Russian media wrote that the President of Ukraine was traveling in a luxuriously furnished carriage, the interiors of which were decorated with gold. In the same carriage, the media wrote, US President Joseph Biden arrived in Ukraine in February. We decided to check if this is true.
Most Russian state and pro-Kremlin media wrote about Zelensky’s “golden train.” On April 5, articles about the luxurious carriage of the Ukrainian president appeared in “Rossiyskaya newspaper", "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Moskovsky Komsomolets", on Lenta.ru, website of the TV channel "Star" Some publications referred to the publication in the Polish media, others limited themselves to the wording “footage appeared on the Internet.”
Original source of publication: Polish tabloid fact, which on April 4, 2023 released a note entitled “President Zelensky’s Luxury Train.” The publication timed its article to coincide with the visit of the Ukrainian leader, who arrived in Poland the next day.
It was the Fakt publication that was then retold by the Russian media. Here are its main points. Zelensky was supposed to arrive in Poland in just such a carriage, and in total the Ukrainian railways have ten such luxury carriages at their disposal, the publication writes. Several years before the war, these carriages were repaired and presented to the public, which caused a wave of criticism. Finally, US President Joseph Biden arrived in Kyiv in such a carriage in February 2023. The most noticeable part of the publication are photographs of gilded interiors.
The first manipulation that catches your eye is the caption to the photo that opens the note. It is a collage of two photographs - Vladimir Zelensky himself and the “golden carriage”, while the author of the photo is indicated as “press service of the President of Ukraine / Reuters”. However, the authorship refers only to Zelensky’s photograph, while the reader may get the feeling that the presidential press service and Reuters also filmed the interior of the car.
The following photographs, showing the “golden carriage” in all its splendor, are already signed as “Ukrzaliznytsia”, a Ukrainian railway company. And this is already true.
The history of “golden carriages” is quite long. Back in 2007, the Ukrainian magazine “Correspondent"wrote about luxury cars. Anyone could use this service for $3,000 per day. “A compartment with a double bed, a shower, a kitchen and a living room, stuffed with expensive appliances, is an incomplete list of the comfortable components of a “hotel on wheels.” You can travel while lying in the bathtub, and, if desired, with a glass of champagne,” this is how the conditions provided by the Ukrainian Railways were described.
In 2015 detailed reportage TSN, an information program of the TV channel “1 + 1”, published about such a carriage. The interiors shown to the correspondent match the photographs from the Fakt article. The report also contains criticism mentioned in the publication: the author of the story calls the carriage “a real Honka on wheels.” Honka is the name of a Finnish company that also built the famous mansion former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych at his residence in Mezhyhirya. The name became a household name after Yanukovych fled in 2014: his residence became a symbol of tasteless luxury for Ukraine.
The report also clarified: such an individual carriage is available to anyone if he has a certain amount. In 2021 in a premium class carriage visited and Ukrainian journalist, author of travel programs Dmitry Komarov.
All these years, Ukrzaliznytsia has not hidden the presence of such cars, and Fakt’s photographs are taken from open sources. But none of the Ukrainian presidents - neither Viktor Yushchenko, nor Viktor Yanukovych, nor Petro Poroshenko, nor Vladimir Zelensky - were seen in the “golden carriages”.
It is known that Vladimir Zelensky travels after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by train. That's right started his trip to the USA in December 2022: first by train to Poland, then by plane. On March 28, 2023, he was accompanied by Associated Press journalists who interviewed the President of Ukraine right in the compartment.
The interiors of the compartment in which Zelensky spoke with journalists on the way from the Sumy region to Kyiv are not much different from a regular train - no crystal chandeliers and gilding on the walls.
In the article of the Polish tabloid there is not a single piece of evidence that Zelensky is going to arrive in Poland on the “golden train”, only photographs of the train itself, whose connection with Zelensky cannot be traced.
The article also mentions the visit of Joe Biden to Kyiv, who allegedly also arrived on just such a train. As a rule, world leaders arriving in Ukraine do not take photographs inside the train. But in the case of Biden, there is just such a picture.
This carriage is different from the usual ones; it is equipped as a study. Perhaps this is just one of those ten premium cars that Ukrzaliznytsia reported. But again, it is not at all similar to the “golden carriage” from the publication of the Polish tabloid.
Thus, reports that Zelensky travels in a special carriage decorated with crystal, marble and gilding are not confirmed. There is not a single photograph that would capture Zelensky in such interiors, as well as eyewitness accounts or relevant documents. Therefore, the publication of the Polish publication, and after it the Russian media, should be considered manipulation. The photographs of the “golden carriage” are genuine, but have nothing to do with the President of Ukraine.
Cover photo: Fakt
Not true
Read on the topic:
- Is it true that Putin has a personal train at a secret station?
- The Insider. Fake by the Kremlin media: Zelensky’s personal railway carriage is an example of tasteless luxury.
- StopFake. Manipulation: Zelensky came to Poland on his “golden train”.
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