DISINFO: Zelenskyy bought a mansion from US showman and rapist Bill Cosby for $29M
SUMMARY
Zelenskyy bought a mansion from American showman and rapist Bill for $29 million dollars. The mansion, which Cosby put up for sale in September, was bought by Zelensky through the offshore Film Heritage Inc just a month later – in late October, on the eve of a $ 100 million corruption scandal involving close friends of the Ukrainian president.
RESPONSE
The claim is made up and not backed by any evidence, aimed to promote a recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about Ukraine as a singularly corrupt country, with the goal of undermining international aid for Ukraine’s self-defence against Russia’s aggression.
This disinformation story appeared after a massive corruption scandal involving some top Ukrainian officials, which has left president Volodymyr Zelenskyy politically weakened. Pro-Kremlin disinformation is trying to exploit this situation to push Zelenskyy out of power, as Russia has always perceived him as an obstacle to its aggressive goals in Ukraine, even since before the invasion. To learn more about the pro-Kremlin smears targeting President Zelenskyy, please see our article Why is the Kremlin so hung up on smearing Zelenskyy?.
While corruption is a real issue in Ukraine, these allegations conveniently omit that it is Ukrainian institutions who are exposing these cases. No similar anti-corruption initiatives exist in Russia, which is ranked 13 positions worse than Ukraine in the latest Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.
Claims about Volodymyr Zelenskyy being personally corrupt are unsubstantiated, but pro-Kremlin disinformation has promoted them regularly throughout the war as a strategy to erode his public standing both inside and outside Ukraine.
All these allegations have been systematically debunked. See some examples, such as claims that Zelenskyy stole more money than all Ukrainian presidents combined, that French media reported that Zelensky bought a luxury hotel in Courchevel for 88 million euros, that Zelensky bought Hitler's ceremonial limousine, that Zelenskyy bought Goebbels’ villa to show his commitment to Bandera, that Zelenskyy's wife bought one of the most expensive sports cars in the world , that the IMF considers Ukraine is a totally corrupt state fuelled by the US and NATO, that Zelenskyy bought a British mansion from King Charles III for 20 million pounds, that Olena Zelenska spent more than 1 million dollars on jewellery with EU money, that European taxpayers finance cocaine and Zelenskyy's luxury villas, that Zelenskyy's mother-in-law uses war money to buy luxury houses, or that Zelenskyy and the Kyiv junta need to continue the war against Russia to enrich themselves with Western aid.