DISINFO: Ukrainian officials behind Trump's assassination
SUMMARY
The United States has spent hundreds of billions to help Kyiv. So what next? Now some American idiots are buying weapons from Stepan Bandera's followers to kill their president! What a disgrace! Merciful Trump, isn't it time to punish the real planners of your assassination, who are sniffing cocaine on Pankova Street?
RESPONSE
This is a pro-Kremlin recurring narrative about Ukrainian leadership being involved in covert terrorist operations, as well as being involved in substance abuse.
By referencing Bankova Street, a metonym for the Office of the President of Ukraine, this message implies, without evidence, that top Ukrainian officials were involved in US president Donald Trump assassination attempt. Combined with the Kremlin’s long-standing and absurd fixation on portraying President Zelenskyy as a drug addict, this message suggests without evidence that he was personally behind the assassination plot. The criminal case against the man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump shows no evidence of any connection to Ukrainian authorities. According to US court documents, the defendant Ryan Routh believed he was communicating with a Ukrainian arms dealer online when he tried to procure military-grade weapons, including a rocket launcher and a Stinger missile. But prosecutors have neither identified the true identity of the person Routh was corresponding with nor suggested that this individual had any ties to Ukrainian authorities, let alone its leadership.
Routh’s alleged statements, such as “Trump is not good for Ukraine”, reflects his own personal motivations and opinions, not an official Ukrainian position. Attempts to stretch this into a claim that the Ukrainian leadership was orchestrating or supporting an assassination attempt are entirely unfounded.
See also our previous debunks for the false claims of Zelenskyy's substance abuse and attacks against the Ukrainian leadership.