At the beginning of June 2025, Telegram channels reported that the cost of a short trip by an American senator to the Ukrainian capital that took place shortly before was more than $411,000. We verified the validity of such statements.

According to Telegram channels and social network users, Senator Lindsey Graham’s visit to Kyiv at the end of May cost American taxpayers almost half a million dollars. A screenshot is used as evidence, from which it follows: The US State Department paid a certain Ukrainian company $411,000 for “hosting services.” This was reported, in particular, by Telegram channels “Malek Dudakov"(1.7 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "Solovyov" (270,000) and "Scott Ritter on Telegram"(50,000). Some - for example, "Voice of Mordor"(81,000) - they wrote about the amount of a million dollars.

Lindsey Graham - Republican senator and one of the most prominent and consistent supporters of Ukraine in the American Congress. He is actively stands for the supply of weapons to Kyiv and strengthening sanctions against Moscow, calls Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and demands that the Russian leadership be brought to legal responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine. In 2024 Rosfinmonitoring turned on Graham to the list of terrorists and extremists, and a year earlier the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin instructed to open a criminal case against the politician for “Russophobic statements” (the reason for this was mounted video in which the congressman’s words were radically distorted).

May 30 Graham visited Kyiv with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Shortly before this they became co-authors bill on the introduction by Washington of 500 percent duties on goods from all countries that buy Russian energy resources. They also discussed this idea in the Ukrainian capital at meeting with President Vladimir Zelensky.

Viral publications say that it was on this business trip that Graham spent $411,000 from the American budget. The screenshot that is posted to prove this statement is authentic - it was made on the website USAspending.gov, which collects information on US government spending. It says that the State Department transferred $411,634 to International Business Center - TOV as payment for accommodation services. Below is her address: Kyiv, Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, 30. There is a hotel at this address in the Ukrainian capital Hilton.

Viral screenshot. Source: social networks

However, the screenshot does not indicate that this is payment for Graham's hotel stay. The State Department transferred the money immediately for the month, and the number of rooms booked, additional services, as well as the names or positions of the guests were not indicated. Moreover, from official press releases and media reports knownthat Graham arrived in Kyiv on May 30, and the contract covers rent from June 1. On that day the senator was already in Paris. If the bill had covered his last visit to Kyiv, it should have been issued two days earlier.

Information about the expenditure of budget funds during foreign business trips of American officials, congressmen and diplomats can be found not only on USAspending.gov - such visits can be paid from different sources. Thus, following the results of official visits, congressmen are required to take special reports, but expenses for placement are not indicated there. If this is a private trip, fully or partially sponsored from outside the budget, then all information related to such a trip is subject to full disclosure, it can be find in the public database of the US Senate Ethics Committee. “Checked” did not find any reports on Graham’s business trip to Kyiv.

Fact-checking project Lead Stories appealed to the US State Department with a request to clarify the essence of the contract from the viral screenshot. The department responded that it could not disclose all the details, but the agreement was in no way related to Graham’s trips to Ukraine. The senator himself published in the social network X post, where he explained that this is a contract for the deployment of American diplomats in a combat zone, which is not related to his visit to Kyiv.

According to USAspending.gov, the US State Department regularly concludes similar agreements with the Kyiv Hilton, including for months when Graham did not visit Ukraine. For example, the same contract, but for $381,000 acted in February 2025, although the senator was in Kyiv at that time wasn't.

Initially, Internet users reproached in thousands of expenses not only Graham, but also his colleague, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. The basis was an almost identical screenshot, but for a slightly smaller amount - about $403,000. This screenshot is also genuine, taken on the same USAspending.gov, and like Graham, it shows a month-to-month contract rather than a housing contract directly from Blumenthal. Senator's spokeswoman Maria McElwain commented to Snopes explainedthat this contract covers the accommodation of any American official who decides to visit Kyiv.

At the same time, publications about a Democratic senator spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on trips to Ukraine did not become as viral as posts about a Republican senator. This probably happened because one of the posts about Graham reposted billionaire and owner of X Elon Musk - it was he who was subsequently referred to by many Russian-language media and Telegram channels. They left similar messages about Blumenthal almost without attention.

The story of hundreds of thousands of dollars allegedly spent on politicians’ trip to Kyiv initially spread in the English-language segment of the social network X. The earliest publication that could be found was “Verified”, appeared on the user page @Alladdin1983 on June 2 at 02:03 Moscow time and received more than 4 million views. In the profile description, the blogger writes that he specializes in uncovering government spending fraud, while the content on his page is mainly consists of from screenshots from USAspending.gov and manipulative captions.

Thus, a genuine screenshot from a website recording American government spending was accompanied by incorrect comments about Lindsey Graham's trip to Ukraine. This screenshot shows one of the typical contracts for the US State Department, concluded with the Kyiv Hilton hotel for a month's rent of an unspecified number of rooms for an unspecified number of guests. There is no evidence that all of the $411,000 in that agreement was spent on one visit by Graham. The same applies to payment for the placement in Kyiv of his colleague Richard Blumenthal.

Cover photo: Office of the President of Ukraine