In February 2025, information appeared on the Runet that the President and First Lady of Ukraine during a visit to the United Arab Emirates lived at the Moscow Hotel. We have verified the accuracy of such messages.

On February 17, Russian media and Telegram channels reported that during the visit of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to the UAE, he and his wife Elena were accommodated in the Moscow Hotel. Many resources saw this as a mockery of the host side. For example, "Moskovsky Komsomolets“suggested that “in the UAE, apparently, they decided to subtly show Zelensky in his place” by checking the politician into only a four-star hotel, and the President’s Office “joined in the trolling of its boss” by coordinating and paying for this reservation. Similar materials were published Lenta.ru, TV channelStar", Life.ru, "Komsomolskaya Pravda", News.ru, "Reedus» and other media. The news was widely distributed in Telegram channels, including “KB"(255,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Newsach / Dvach"(196,000), "Uncle Slava" (180,000) and "Ukraine.ru"(151,000). The Zelensky couple's check-in at the Moscow Hotel was also discussed by users Instagram, "VKontakte", X And Facebook.

February 16 Vladimir Zelensky arrived on an official visit to the United Arab Emirates, where the next day held a meeting with the country's President Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan. On February 19, the Ukrainian leader was supposed to go to Saudi Arabia as part of a diplomatic tour of the Middle East. But the day before he announced about the cancellation of this part of the trip, since negotiations between representatives of Russia and the United States, including those dedicated to ending the war in Ukraine, were announced in Riyadh. “We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us. I don’t want coincidences and that’s why I won’t go to Saudi Arabia,” said Zelensky. The meeting of the delegations of the Russian Federation and the United States was also mentioned by some Telegram channels, which talked about the Zelensky couple checking into the Moscow Hotel - for example, according to the channel “Newsach / Dvach", it was there that the President of Ukraine "awaited the results of the negotiations."

To confirm the news, many resources used a screenshot of a story allegedly published by Elena Zelenskaya on Instagram. The photograph shows a conference room, accompanied by the caption “Soon 💙💛” (“Coming Soon”) and the geotag “Al Rigga, Deira, Dubai.” Users found on Yandex.Maps the Moscow Hotel, located in the Al-Rigga district of Dubai, as well as a photo of its conference room, which looks exactly like Zelenskaya’s photo.

Stories are temporary posts that disappear 24 hours after publication. It is not surprising that at the time of writing this analysis in account Zelenskaya no longer had this recording. However, it is suspicious that only one screenshot of it is circulating on the Internet - all images show the same timestamp “8 minutes”, indicating how long ago the publication was posted. If such a story had really appeared on Zelenskaya’s profile, one of her 3 million subscribers would probably have paid attention to it and also taken a screenshot.

There is another, much more suspicious detail. The Ukraina.ru Telegram channel, owned by the Russian state news agency MIA Rossiya Segodnya, published two similar posts about the Zelensky couple in Moscow. In publication and from February 17, and from February 18 a screenshot of Zelenskaya’s alleged story was provided. Only in the second case there was no caption “Soon 💙💛”, although the timestamp on both images was identical.

Finally, Zelensky met with the President of the UAE not in Dubai, as viral posts on Telegram claimed, but in the capital of the country, Abu Dhabi. This is confirmed by press releases both parties, And reports numerous media.

“Verified” could not find a hotel in Abu Dhabi with the name “Moscow”. In Dubai, the Moscow Hotel is indeed There is. Photo of the conference room, which Zelenskaya allegedly published, taken from the hotel's website.

On the left are stories from viral posts, on the right is a screenshot of the Moscow Hotel website in Dubai

The earliest fake publication we found appeared in the Telegram channel “Urgently, now» February 17 at 15:17 Moscow time. This channel is already featured in the analysis of “Verified” as a distributor of disinformation about Ukraine.

Thus, the news about the Zelenskys staying at the Moscow Hotel in Dubai is fake. The screenshot of the story allegedly published on Instagram by the first lady of Ukraine was fabricated based on a publicly available photograph of the conference room. Moreover, the Zelenskys arrived on an official visit not to Dubai, but to Abu Dhabi, where there is no hotel named “Moscow”.

Cover photo: Office of the President of Ukraine