DISINFO: Zelenskyy buys Hitler’s Mercedes
SUMMARY
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has bought Adolf Hitler's ceremonial limousine Mercedes-Benz 770k. It is believed that the car cost Zelenskyy $15 million. The Nazi leader rode in this car during a parade in Berlin after the surrender of France in 1940. After the war ended, the limousine was confiscated and taken out of Europe by the US Army. The car was put up for auction in the US in 2018 but did not sell, as the offered price of $7 million fell below expectations. Later, it became known that negotiations were underway to sell the car to a client outside the US. In early October 2024, Zelenskyy was seen getting out of the very same Mercedes-Benz 770k near the president’s office in central Kyiv. This happened shortly after Zelensky returned from his US tour.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin defamatory narrative against Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, supporting the disinformation trope of Nazi Ukraine. Russia’s TVC channel took this disinformation from an article in the Seattle Tribune. The Seattle Tribune is not a real media outlet. BBC Verify's Shayan Sardarizadeh reported that no such news outlet based in Seattle exists and that the website was only set up in the past week "specifically to post this fake story." Its articles often portray Ukraine as a Nazi state and call for diminishing US support for Kyiv. The Seattle Tribune said that the screenshot of the car allegedly parked in front of the Ukrainian President’s office was taken from the Ukrainian Telegram messenger channel Realna Viyna. In reality, this channel did not publish such a post. It is a montage composed of different images.
Pro-Kremlin outlets have intensified their disinformation attacks against Zelenskyy and his family since Russia launched its unjustified and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
This kind of disinformation plays on the expected emotional reaction in the audience by using the key word "Hitler" in the headline. It is a classic Kremlin tactic to try provoke an emotional reaction be manipulating with scandalous text. See our analysis of this tactic in this article "Lighting fire to emotions with lies".
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Zelenskyy bought British mansion from King Charles III for 20 million pounds, that Olena Zelenska spent more than 1 million dollars on jewellery with EU money, and that Olena Zelenska Foundation is trafficking children through Poland.