In April 2024, reports spread across the Internet that the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine was included in the prestigious Time rating thanks to a bribe. The BBC allegedly reported this with reference to a Bellingcat publication. We checked whether the journalists actually published such an investigation.
Similar publications about Andrei Ermak, who allegedly bought himself a place on Time’s annual list of the most influential people in the world, went viral on April 19. In the Telegram channel of the TV presenter Olesya Loseva (25,000 views as of this writing), the story goes like this: “Bellingcat dug up who paid Time to list them as one of their top 100 most influential people. Among others was Andrey Ermak. The average bill for such a position is from $10 to $30 million, it cost Ermak $27 million. Bellingcat editor-in-chief Eliot Higgins believes that in this way Ermak gets political points to claim the place of [Vladimir] Zelensky, because at the end of May Zelensky may cease to perform his duties, including “for reasons related to health.” The post also includes a one and a half minute video with the BBC logo.
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, more than 220 Telegram channels wrote about Ermak’s bribe, whose publications received a total of about 2.3 million views. Similar posts appeared in the channels “Uncle Slava"(190,000 views), Voblya (153,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(136,000), "First People's"(108,000), "Bullet"(106,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(91,000), "Mislivets Egor"(91,000), Gura Anton (85,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram" (66,000) and "Special Operation Z"(54,000). About the $27 million that Time allegedly received from Ermak also told YouTube channel “Where is the truth” (36,000 views), publics in “VKontakte" and some media and news sites, including "Notebook", IA News Front, "Podolyak", TopNews And etc..
April 17 Time magazine published annual ranking of the 100 most influential people in the world, in which in 2024 the editors included the head of the Office of the Ukrainian President. Ermak became the only representative of Ukraine on the list and fell into the category “Leaders", where Yulia Navalnaya, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Argentine President Javier Miley are presented, among others. A small accompanying article Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen prepared about Ermak for the magazine. “Over the past two years, I have worked closely with Andriy Ermak on issues of long-term security for Ukraine. “I saw firsthand the great work he is doing to strengthen support for Ukraine around the world,” wrote He.
The viral video claiming that Ermak got into the Time ratings thanks to a bribe shows the logo, as well as the opening and closing titles of BBC videos. The recording itself is a compilation of archival photos and videos, over which English-language captions are superimposed.
Andrey Ermak's place in Time's top 100 could cost $27 million.
Bellingcat journalists obtained a list of people who paid to be included in the ranking of the most influential people of 2024. About 12 people paid between $10 million and $30 million for a spot on the Time 100. Among the names received by Bellingcat was Andrey Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration. According to the information, people known for their ties to Ermak paid $27 million for the place. This also includes an official comment from former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Anders Fogh Rasmussen called Ermak "a person who played a central role in making the government work." In 2024, Andriy Ermak became the only Ukrainian politician included in the Time 100. Publication in Time magazine could be one of Ermak’s first serious steps aimed at increasing his authority both among Western elites and among domestic audiences. Eliot Higgins insists that this should only be seen as the beginning of a direct confrontation with Vladimir Zelensky. “This is impossible without support from the United States,” emphasizes Eliot Higgins. “This is yet another confirmation of reliable information that Zelensky will not be able to fulfill his duties in the summer, including for health reasons.”
None of the notes and posts mentioned above contain a link to the original publications with video or investigation. "Verified" studied website and official BBC social networks (Facebook, X, YouTube), however we were unable to find a similar video about Ermak there. Bellingcat resources (website, X) there is also no investigation into Zelensky’s adviser being included in the list of the most influential people in the world.
This video about Ermak is another fake that is being passed off as content from the British Broadcasting Corporation. “Verified” has already released a separate material about the mass production of fabricated videos with the logos of the BBC and other well-known international media. This is not the first time that Bellingcat has been mentioned in such fakes. For example, this investigative project previously allegedly reported that Ukraine sold weapons to the Palestinian group Hamas, that ex-adviser of the Office of the President of Ukraine Alexey Arestovich for six months spent for the rental of private planes $500,000 and that after the resignation from the post of commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny received $53 million for renouncing political ambitions. All these reports turned out to be false.
On April 20, BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring editor Olga Robinson on her page on the social network X called viral video about Ermak and a $27 million bribe with “another fake BBC video with a link to Bellingcat.” On the same day about the fake wrote and former Bellingcat journalist Hristo Grozev. According to him, this massive fake campaign with fabricated BBC videos is also trying to discredit Navalnaya, who is included in the same rating as Ermak. April 21 rebuttal posted Bellingcat social media account X: “Our organization’s name is being used in a falsified BBC report to spread disinformation. It's an ongoing campaign of videos, first posted on Telegram and then appearing on X and other platforms." In the second tweet of the project clarified, that all such recordings use a design similar to the BBC's branding, and text comments that are not duplicated by voice. Both posts were retweeted by Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, who is mentioned in the video.
Often in such analyses, “Verified”, as an additional argument, talked about spelling errors, differences in fonts and other visual inconsistencies in the design of the fake. However, in the case of the video about Ermak’s bribe, the authors of the fake made a mistake that we have not seen before. At the 01:26 mark, simultaneously with the text that Zelensky will not be able to perform his duties in the summer, another title appears, part of which can be read: “On August 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s business jet...”. “Verified” found out that such an offer was in another fake video with the BBC logo - it appeared in the summer of 2023, and it was claimed that Prigozhin did not die in a plane crash, but faked his death. Apparently, the authors of the fake got confused in their own files and did not review the new video before distributing it on Telegram.
The earliest fake post that we were able to find using keywords appeared on April 19 at 16:16 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Putin on Telegram"(164,000 views). He mentioned in analyzes “Checked” several dozen times.
Cover photo: @AndriyYermak (X)
- Time. The 100 Most Influential People of 2024. Andriy Yermak
- False authorities. How the BBC became the brand of choice for fake video creators.
- Is it true that actor Danny Trejo refused to cooperate with Zelensky because the President’s Office demanded a kickback?
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