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In May 2024, the news appeared in the media and social networks that the stepson of Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk paid more than € 8 million to the Madrid casino to pay off the unpaid debt of an American writer. We checked whether such publications are reliable.
On May 1, the Russian Telegram channels began to spread a video with the logo of The European Times, which states that the stepson of the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk allegedly paid € 8 million located in the Spanish capital Casino de Madrid. The money covered the money that existed since 1959, the writer Ernest Hemingway, also Pinchuk Jr. left the staff of € 700,000. They wrote about this generous act, for example, “Arguments and facts" Eadaily, "Mriya" And Portals, dedicated gambling. The video allegedly created by The European Times was placed on their pages "Zena" Facebook, X And Instagram. The news parted on Telegram. Channel Gura Anton (108,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) commented on it like this: “Ukrainians are fighting so that Pinchuk and his son, calmly, do not understand to whom.” Channel authors "Cat Kostyan”(96,000) added:“ While some crests run and begging around the world, other crests have fun and click on the debts of the dead. The ideal story of Hochlism. "
Victor Pinchuk is one of the richest people in Ukraine, in 2024 Forbes magazine Evaluated His fortune is $ 2 billion. Among the main assets of the businessman are pipeline production and several large television channels. In 2002, Pinchuk married Elena Franchuk, the daughter of the second president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, and became a stepfather of Roman Franchuk, who was born in 1991, the son of Elena from her first marriage. By data Journalists at the beginning of this year, the soldier of the billionaire took his last name and lives in the United States.
The EUROPEAN TIMES video is a slide show with text subtitles. They say:
“The stepson of Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk repaid Ernest Hemingway's debt to the Spanish casino in the amount €8 million. The writer's debt to Casino de Madrid was the oldest casino in Spain in the history of the casino. In 1959, Ernest Hemingway lost at the poker table of this casino the amount equivalent to the current €8 million a year later the writer committed suicide, and the debt remained unpaid. This weekend, Roman Pinchuk, a stepson of the Ukrainian billionaire and philanthropist Viktor Pinchuk, paid the whole amount of debt to the gambling institution. A casino source report that Pinchuk left a tips for the amount about about that evening €700,000, that is, in general spent almost €9 million Ernest Hemingway, from a young age, was an adherent of gambling and spent large sums in a casino and horse races. According to some historians, huge gambling debts became the true cause of the writer's suicide. ”
The screensavers at the beginning and end of the clip about Pinchuk coincide with those that The European Times usually use in his Videos. Nevertheless, the information style is significantly different. In the genuine rollers of the publication (they are published, for example, on its YouTube-channel) A sunbeam is used, which reads the text of the news, and in the video about Pinchuk the information is presented exclusively in the form of subtitles imposed in the photo and video from open sources.
On the site The European Times, in his official accounts in YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X And there are no other social networks about the stepson Pinchuk and the Spanish casino. In addition, at the time of writing this parsing, not a single large and authoritative Spanish media published articles that the stepson of the Ukrainian billionaire paid Hemingway's debt.
The writer really visited Spain in 1959. “Verified” studied excerpts of three biographical books about Hemingway, which describes the summer of 1959, held by him in Spain. Biographies authors (Carlos Baker, Jeffrey Meyers, Mary Diarborn) They mention the smallest details - for example, which fee Hemingway received for the story about the Toreadors printed in the magazine and in which room the hotel stopped during visits to Madrid. However, not one of the books is mentioned that Hemingway allegedly lost a huge amount in Casino de Madrid.
In addition, the video mistakenly states that Hemingway committed suicide in 1960, a year after the alleged loss in the casino, and that it was poker debts that allegedly caused his suicide. But in fact, the writer lived until mid -1961 and, as He thinks Most reputable historians, biographers and psychiatrists, were shot due to progressive mental illness, including bipolar disorder, alcohol dependence and probable borderline personality disorder.
“Verified” also could not find any information about “the oldest duty in the history of gambling in Spain”, which Hemingway allegedly did not pay the Madrid casino. In 2023, the Spanish magazine The Objective published article The financial difficulties of Casino de Madrid, who was facing a fine of € 230,000. According to experts quoted by the author of the article, the fine for such an amount will have serious consequences for the financial situation of the organization, the budget of which is € 3.4 million. Probably if Roman Pinchuk really paid € 8 million, information about this would have appeared in the Spanish media.
According to the TGSTAT service, the earliest publication of a fake video about Pinchuk appeared in the Telegram channel "Sheikh Tamir"May 1 at 18:10 Moscow time and scored 291,000 views. This channel is already many times Facing In the analysis of "tested" as the primary source of fake news. Similar videos imitating videos DW, Al jazeera, Euronews, BBC, Reuters, Fox News and other Western media, regularly appear in the pro-Kremlin Telegram channels.
Thus, Viktor Pinchuk, who has dispersed in Telegram, is a fake. The statements of the duty of Hemingway Madrid casino, which Roman Pinchuk allegedly paid 65 years later, are not confirmed by any information in authoritative sources.
Addition of May 15, 2024: After the publication of the analysis of the “verified” received a response from The European Times. The publication confirmed that there was nothing to do with a fake video.
Photo on the cover: Telegram
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