Revelations of a former assistant, betrayal and quarrels with relatives. Fakes about Yulia Navalnaya

In February 2024, several news appeared on Telegram channels about the widow of Alexei Navalny - pro-Kremlin bloggers accused her of treason, hypocrisy and conflicts with her mother-in-law. We decided to analyze the most popular of these statements.

Novels with Grozev and Chichvarkin

In February, a video appeared on social networks with the revelations of a certain Anna Gonchar, who introduced herself as an ex-employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and a former personal assistant to Yulia Navalnaya. The three-minute video was almost entirely dedicated to her personal life. In particular, the author accused the politician’s wife of having an affair with investigative journalist Hristo Grozev - the couple allegedly went on romantic trips while Alexei Navalny was imprisoned in Russia.

Remarkably, this story had two bursts of popularity on social networks. The first was on February 5, when Gonchar’s confessions were reported on, for example, Telegram channels “Live"(726,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Sanya in Florida"(357,000), "PUTIN on Telegram" (160,000) and "Ostashko! Important"(100,000). The earliest detected “Verified” publication on Telegram appeared on February 4 at 23:59 Moscow time in the channel Neues aus Russland Alina Lipp (51,000).

The second wave of video distribution began on the evening of February 16, the day of Navalny’s death, and continued over the next few days. Thus, the already mentioned Telegram channel “Ostashko! Important” wrote twice in a short time about Navalnaya’s personal life with reference to the same Gonchar - February 16 (127,000 views) and February 18 (134,000). February 17th same post posted TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov (337,000) in his Telegram channel. 

First of all, let's try to understand who Anna Gonchar is and how close she was to FBK and the Navalny family. The video itself is supposedly a compilation of Instagram stories; the nickname is visible in the upper left corner.

The user with the nickname @anna_gonchar_fbk is not on this or other social networks. It was not possible to find it using Google search; all links only lead to screenshots of the video. FBK director Ivan Zhdanov told Verified that a girl named Anna Gonchar had never worked for them.

It is possible that it does not exist at all, and the video itself is a deepfake. In mid-February, editor-in-chief of state RT and Sputnik Margarita Simonyan reported, that her news agency “riveted a whole bunch of artificial presenters.” This version is also supported by the fact that the use of the PimEyes facial recognition service did not produce any significant results.

Back on February 3, Gonchar told the website about the revelations Clear Story News. The first publications on this resource appeared in October 2023, mostly reprints of notes from American media. At the same time, the site does not have editorial contacts or an “About Us” section that would provide information about Clear Story News, and the news is published either by anonymous people or by authors with empty profiles.

In the viral video, as evidence of Navalnaya’s connection with Grozev, not only Gonchar’s statements are cited, but also printouts of hotel reservations in France, where the journalist and the oppositionist’s wife allegedly vacationed together. Screenshots of these documents were separately published by the author of Clear Story News, followed by pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. Gonchar claims that she personally booked hotel rooms: in July 2023 at Le Negresco in Nice, in December of the same year at Mont-Blanc in Chamonix.

Such printouts from the Booking.com service contain a reservation number and PIN code, with which the client can find out information about travel dates and accommodation details. In the screenshots, the pages are cropped and the confirmation number is not fully displayed. Grozev's colleague from the Bellingcat investigative team Elliott Higgins, however, determined These number combinations are simple selection.

It turned out that, firstly, both reservations were cancelled. Secondly, these trips could not take place in 2023 - the booking on Booking was made no earlier than the beginning of 2024. A room in Nice was booked for April 2024, in Chamonix for December 2024. Without a doubt, both bookings were made by the authors of the “exposure” specifically for publication.

In the video and subsequent publications, photos of them together are given as indirect evidence of the close relationship between Navalnaya and Grozev. In general, the presence of such photographs is not surprising - it was the Bulgarian journalist who in 2020 investigated the poisoning of Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok and found outthat the Russian FSB was behind this crime. But it is characteristic that in one of the photographs there were initially three people: Hristo Grozev, Yulia Navalnaya and Alexei Navalny. However, the authors of the video removed the politician from the photo. Navalny posted the original photo in his Instagram December 15, 2020.

The second photo included in Gonchar’s video is a fragment of a photograph taken in April 2022 and affordable in the Getty Images photo bank. The photographer captured Grozev and Navalnaya, as well as her daughter Daria, head of the FBK investigation department Maria Pevchikh and director Daniel Roher at the New York premiere of the documentary “Navalny”. Grozev’s presence at this event is not surprising - the film tells how he and his colleagues investigated the poisoning of a Russian politician.

In the video, Gonchar also talks about Navalnaya’s connection with businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin. As proof used A photo of them together on the seashore. The same photo, along with the “exposure,” was subsequently published by Russian pro-government Telegram channels.

After Navalny’s death, another photograph of his widow with Chichvarkin began to be distributed on Telegram. This picture was posted, in particular, by the channels “SOLOVIEV" (356,000 views) and "Uncle Slava» (221,000)

The first photo is real: it was taken in August 2021 on the beach in Jurmala, Latvia. Chichvarkin posted this photo in his Instagram and accompanied it with the signature “With the First Lady of the Beautiful Russia of the Future” and a call to release Alexei Navalny.

Second photo appeared no later than autumn 2021. Unlike the first one, this is a fake. The original photograph was taken by photographer Evgeny Feldman in Kirov on July 19, 2013, after the announcement of the decision in the case “Kirovles" Subsequently, instead of Alexei Navalny hugging his wife, Chichvarkin was added to the image. This is confirmed by both photo bank data and Feldman.

In the story of accusations of adultery against Yulia Navalnaya, the same scheme was used that was previously used, for example, in disinformation campaigns against the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky. In particular, in December 2023, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels told about luxury real estate allegedly purchased by a politician in the USA, Germany and Egypt. In all three cases, this was allegedly reported by some insiders or investigative journalists with reference to documents, then their revelations were shared by little-known websites imitating the media, and then by Russian propaganda resources. In fact, it turned out that the evidence was falsified, and the whistleblowers of corruption in the Ukrainian leadership impersonated other people.

"Joy after the death of her husband"

On February 16, when the news about the death of Alexei Navalny in the colony appeared, his wife was in Munich at an international security conference. From the forum's podium, Yulia Navalnaya made a special address. “If this is true, I want Putin, everyone around him, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband,” stated she. 

The very next day on social networks messages appearedthat psychologist Paul Ekman, the prototype of the protagonist of the series “Lie to Me,” analyzed a video of Navalnaya’s speech. An expert in the field of emotions argued that the politician’s widow could not hide her joy at the death of her husband.

As confirmation, a video with the logo of the American Psychological Association was used, at the end of which viewers were asked to read Ekman’s article about Navalnaya’s speech, published in a specialized magazine. However, no relevant materials were found either on the association’s website or in the said publication, and the video itself turned out to be a fake. The psychologist’s press service reported that he did not give such assessments and, in general, neither he nor his company provide public comments about the behavior of other people.

As in the case of Gonchar’s “revelations,” a viral video about Navalnaya’s “joy” after the news of her husband’s death appeared is a long-established practice used by propaganda resources. Back in 2022, pro-Kremlin media and Telegram channels began publish fake stories allegedly posted by the world's largest media outlets. Dozens of similar videos, analyzed by Verified and other fact-checking projects, were aimed at discrediting Zelensky and Western leaders, as well as Ukraine, the United States and the European Union.

Quarrel with mother-in-law

On February 22, social networks became diverge roller allegedly with an appeal from Alexei Navalny’s mother to his widow. In a viral one-and-a-half-minute video (actually an audio recording with a placeholder picture), Lyudmila Navalnaya allegedly reproaches her daughter-in-law that it was she who convinced the politician to return to Russia, transferred his property to herself and turned her daughter Daria against her father. “It was strange and wild for me to see you with a smile, a few hours after Alexei’s death, speaking on his behalf in Munich. How do you appropriate his voice after his death. You didn’t even take a break for the sake of decency, you didn’t observe mourning. They ran to sell his death. You are a vile and low person. I despise you and forbid you to speculate on the name of my son, my child,” the oppositionist’s mother allegedly says.

The primary source of the audio recording turned out to be the Telegram channel “Signal,” which had previously been repeatedly noted for spreading fake news, including about Vladimir and Elena Zelensky.  By data “Medusa”, “Important Stories” and The Bell, “Signal” is supervised by blogger Ekaterina Agranovich (Katrusya), who also represents the “network” of channels of media manager Kristina Potupchik, who is close to the Kremlin.

“Checked” analyzed the audio using the AI ​​or Not service, which allows you to identify speech generated by a neural network. With a very high probability, the analysis results indicate that Navalny’s mother’s appeal to his widow was created using artificial intelligence. At the time the viral video was released, there was only one easily detectable sample of Lyudmila Navalnaya’s voice in the public domain (video from her requirement to Russian President Vladimir Putin to hand over his son’s body), so the fake turned out to be imperfect, and the voice does not resemble the real one.

The use of neural networks to fake voices is another method often used by creators of propaganda materials. Thus, in 2023, pro-Kremlin resources will widely advertised a documentary about corruption in the International Olympic Committee, allegedly directed by Tom Cruise. The Hollywood actor himself never appeared on camera, but his voice, apparently generated using artificial intelligence, was used for voice acting.

Cover photo: X/yulia_navalnaya