00:00Does Zelenskyy have a stolen painting in his office?
00:07Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been accused of hanging a stolen painting in his office.
00:12The claim has been circulating on X where several accounts share what appeared to be
00:17a BBC News interview with him. In the footage, a painting is visible in the background,
00:21identified as Nature Morte aux cerises, or Still Live with Cherries in English,
00:25by French artist Paul Cézanne. But none of this stands up to scrutiny.
00:30It is true that the artwork was stolen in late March along with two other masterpieces by Pierre
00:35Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse from the Magnani Rocca Foundation near Parma in Italy.
00:40The theft was reportedly worth between 9 and 10 million euros. However, there is no evidence
00:46linking any of these stolen works to Zelenskyy's office. The presidency has also told the cube
00:52that the accusations are false. The supposed BBC report is entirely fabricated. The voiceover is
00:59AI-generated and elements of the Ukrainian presidential website have been digitally manipulated.
01:05This video is part of an anti-Ukrainian disinformation campaign spread by a Russian
01:09bot network called Matryoshka. The original footage comes from an interview with the Associated Press
01:14recorded three months earlier. A comparison of both versions shows that the painting in the background
01:20is different, meaning the stolen painting was artificially inserted into the video.
01:25At the time the interview was recorded, the work that actually hung in that spot was by Ukrainian artist
01:31Andriy Chebotaru depicting Mont de Mergy in Crimea, the artist's home region. He told the cube that
01:37several of his works were gifted to Zelenskyy by France. And this is not an isolated case. In October 2025,
01:43similar pro-Kremlin networks falsely claimed Ukrainian refugees had been arrested by French police,
01:49in connection with last year's Louvreist.
Comments