At the beginning of November 2023, news appeared in the Russian media and blogs about an investigation in which a foundation established by the wife of the President of Ukraine was accused of selling Ukrainian children to a pedophile network. We decided to check if this is true.
Reports of the scandal surrounding Zelenskaya's foundation began to spread on November 7. The Russian media reported this “Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Arguments and facts" And "Constantinople" Telegram channels such as “The world today with "Yuri Podolyak""(1.6 million views at the time of writing this analysis), Anna KuZnetsoVa (245,000), "Putin on Telegram"(191,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(144,000), "Ostashko! Important"(115,000).
The vast majority of media outlets referred to The Intel Drop website when publishing news about the Elena Zelenskaya Foundation. It was stated that he was based in Iceland. Such a site actually exists, and article about the Zelenskaya Foundation appeared there on November 5th. There are no indications of the authorship of the text or the origin of the site as a whole on The Intel Drop itself.
Using the service URLVoid fact checkers from "Vox Ukraine“It was possible to establish that the site was created in September 2022 and was registered in the Netherlands.
The main content of the site is pro-Russian publications, among which there are outright fakes (for example, articles about the attack on "secret NATO bunker"in Ukraine and about the "joint training of Azov and Hamas"), as well as conspiracy theories and frankly anti-Semitic posts.
The only source of the article about the Elena Zelenskaya Foundation is the video on YouTube, in which an unknown man, introducing himself as a former employee of the foundation, talks about child trafficking. He speaks French, but it is not possible to determine the identity of the narrator: the recording was made in semi-darkness, the man is wearing a hood and a mask covering the lower part of his face.
As proof, The Intel Drop publishes a photo of the ID, but this does not allow the man to be identified - the photograph of its owner is blurred out on the ID, as is his name.
The channel where the interview appeared is called Robert Schmidt. This allowed Russian media and Telegram channels to write that this is the name of the author of the investigation and that this is French journalist Robert Schmidt. At the time of writing this analysis, the video remained the only one in this channel with 129 subscribers. This allows us to conclude: the channel was created solely so that the site could link to it in its article.
The most famous journalist with the fairly common name Robert Schmidt is a reporter living in Strasbourg, France. But judging by his articles, Ukraine is not part of his professional interests - Schmidt writes mainly on topics related to the French or German regional agenda.
The text contains a mention of the French philosopher and public figure Bernard-Henri Levy. At the beginning of 2023 he sent proceeds from their documentaries to the Elena Zelenskaya Foundation. The Intel Drop claims that Levy is part of a pedophile ring. Even if we assume that some French journalist took part in the creation of the article, he could hardly allow the name of the main anti-hero of the publication to be written with a gross mistake.
In the article, the first and last names of the philosopher are mixed up: instead of Bernard-Henri Lévy, it is written Bernard Henri-Lévy. This could be attributed to a typo, but in the next phrase only the surname appears, without the name: Henri-Levi. Considering that Levy is one of the most famous figures in politics and public life in France, it is impossible to imagine that a Frenchman would not know his last name.
Another source that refer Russian media and bloggers - website DC Weekly. The article in this publication is not much different from the publication on The Intel Drop, even the erroneous spelling of Henri-Levi's surname was retained. Jessica Devlin is listed as the author of the material. Her biography on the website talks about Devlin's work as a reporter during the Iraq War and her collaboration with Bloomberg's editorial team in Moscow. However, no mention of similar achievements of a journalist named Jessica Devlin could be found. In addition, the photo accompanying her profile on the site is someone else's, in fact, the photo is of the famous writer and journalist Judy Batalion.
Finally, the Ukrainian authorities also called publications about the Zelenskaya Foundation fake. Advisor to the Head of the Presidential Office Daria Zarivnaya counted this is a deliberate disinformation campaign, adding that among the photographs of allegedly kidnapped Ukrainian children there is also a photo of her own daughter.
So, articles about the involvement of the Elena Zelenskaya Foundation appeared on sites that, in all respects, resemble English-language channels for the dissemination of Russian propaganda narratives. In one case, the author of the publication is unknown, in the other, a profile with a fake biography and someone else’s photo is indicated. Source - YouTube video uploaded to a specially created channel with a minimum number of subscribers. Then the news was spread by Russian propaganda Telegram channels, which have been repeatedly caught spreading fake news, followed by Russian media.
Cover photo: zelenskafoundation.org
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