At the end of August 2025, media and Telegram channels distributed a video about a former employee of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), who allegedly uncovered a corruption scheme through which the country’s president and his associates spent millions of dollars on foreign real estate. We have verified the accuracy of this news.

Publications about a new corruption scandal in Ukraine appeared on the Internet on August 27 with reference to the London Telegraph. It is alleged that an ex-employee of the Ukrainian anti-corruption body accused Vladimir Zelensky and his entourage of purchasing real estate worth a total of $1.2 billion. According to the woman, through a network of front companies, the country’s president and his associates acquired more than 100 properties in Europe and the UAE.

The news was spread by Telegram channels “Operation Z: military correspondents of the Russian spring"(452,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Solovyov Live"(246,000), "Evil proof"(193,000), "Voice of Mordor"(121,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(105,000), "Ukraine.ru"(101,000), "Ostashko! Important"(86,000), etc.

NABU has been in the spotlight of public and media attention since the Verkhovna Rada approved a bill in July that would strip the agency, as well as the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP), of independence. The authorities explained their decision by the need to counteract Russian influence: one of the heads of NABU detectives Ruslan Magamedrasulov was detained on charges of assisting his father, who is doing business in the Russian Federation. The unexpected passage of the bill sparked mass protests. July 24, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky suggested parliament to restore the independence of anti-corruption bodies, and the Verkhovna Rada supported this initiative a week later.

The authors of the viral publications refer to an investigation by the London Telegraph. On his website on August 26 there was published a piece headlined “Ukrainian anti-corruption official exposes Zelensky's $1.2 billion real estate empire,” accompanied by a two-minute video in English. The text talks about a former NABU employee named Elena K. According to her, she took out “thousands of pages of internal documents detailing systemic corruption at the highest levels of government in Kyiv.” These papers allegedly include purchase and sale agreements for 26 properties in Spain, 14 in the UK, 21 in France, eight in Italy and 34 in the UAE.

However, the text does not contain photographs or screenshots of any of these documents. Some frames from the video could serve as proof - for example, at the seventh second of the video, papers are shown laid out on the table. However, the text on them is blurred, and among the distinctive features that make it possible to establish that these are Ukrainian documents, one can only see the country’s coat of arms at the top of the sheet. However, a reverse Google image search revealed that the photo had been posted before. It depicts documents found by the Security Service of Ukraine during a search in the house of deputy Fyodor Khristenko as part of an investigation into the leak of confidential NABU data. Special service published this photo in his Telegram channel on July 22, at the same time it was shared by many Ukrainian Media.

The photographs of houses and apartments shown in the video are also borrowed from open sources. For example, the photograph of a UK apartment shown at 01:39 was taken from site with an announcement of their sale, and an image of a penthouse in Monaco (01:44) published on the real estate agency website.

At the 37th second of the video, an interview with Elena K. is shown, who allegedly revealed the scheme. It is reported that she worked in the department of organizational, analytical and strategic development of NABU. Anti-Corruption Bureau website confirmsthat the department has such a unit, but “Verified” did not find any information about the employee who escaped from there.

The woman's face is covered up, so it is difficult to reliably establish her identity. This approach of the authors is logical, given that the heroine of the plot allegedly took out many sensational documents from Ukraine. But in this case, it remains unclear why her voice was kept unchanged (at least the video does not claim otherwise). At the same time, the voice sounds too monotonous and unnatural - this suggests that the voice acting could be created using AI. Based on the results of the analysis, the service for identifying generated content Hive estimated the probability of using neural networks in the excerpt containing an interview with Elena K. at 99%.

The same goes for the voiceover that is used throughout the rest of the video.

The London Telegraph website itself raises many questions. Firstly, it does not contain information typical of any reputable media outlet: no registration information, no editorial staff, no contact information. On the site you can only see news items published in four sections and a brief description of the resource.

The author of the investigation into the allegedly escaped NABU employee is Charlotte Davis. “Verified” did not find any other publications by this journalist, and a search using the photo in the author’s profile led to page @Helen_R_Brown on social network X. The owner of the account is journalist Helen Brown, who has collaborated with The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, BBC and other major British publications. There is no information on her page about writing texts for the London Telegraph.

Above - London Telegraph screenshot, below - screenshot profile Helen Brown in X. Source: collage "Verified"

According to the service Whois, website londontelegraph.uk was registered on August 14, 2025, that is, less than two weeks before the publication of the investigation. The media did not report other materials from this publication. At the time of writing this analysis, the London Telegraph website is no longer available.

All this suggests that, apparently, the site only mimicked the media and was created specifically for spreading misinformation. This is not the first time this method of disseminating falsified investigations has been used. In July went viral reports of the death of a surgeon who allegedly knew the details of Brigitte Macron's transgender transition in August - that Moldovan President Maia Sandu buys the sperm of gay stars, and the wife of the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan appropriated donations sent to a charitable foundation. In all these cases, the legalization of fakes occurred through fake news sites registered shortly before. Previously, false messages were spread using the same scheme. news about the expensive acquisitions of Zelensky or his immediate relatives.

Publications about the corruption scandal with reference to the London Telegraph have gone viral not only on the RuNet. The earliest posts with tens of thousands of views found by Verified were written in English language. Only on August 27 Telegram channel “Voice of Mordor” published a viral video with subtitles in Russian, after which the information began to actively spread in the Russian-language segment of the Internet.

Thus, the notes that Zelensky and his associates spent $1.2 billion on the purchase of luxury foreign real estate are based on the publication of a website that mimics the media and was specially created to legalize disinformation. The video accompanying the investigation was compiled from images previously published on the Internet, and the confession of the ex-NABU employee who allegedly provided evidence was generated using AI.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons/European Parliament