00:00Does Zelenskyy have a stolen painting in his office?
00:07Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
00:09has been accused of hanging a stolen painting in his office.
00:12The claim has been circulating on X,
00:14where several accounts share what appeared to be
00:17a BBC News interview with him.
00:18In the footage, a painting is visible in the background,
00:21identified as Nature Morte aux Cerises
00:23or Still Live with Cherries in English,
00:26by French artist Paul Cézanne.
00:27But none of this stands up to scrutiny.
00:30It is true that the artwork was stolen in late March,
00:32along with two other masterpieces
00:34by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse
00:37from the Magnani Rocca Foundation near Parma in Italy.
00:40The theft was reportedly worth between 9 and 10 million euros.
00:45However, there is no evidence linking any of these stolen works
00:48to Zelenskyy's office.
00:50The presidency has also told the cube
00:52that the accusations are false.
00:53The supposed BBC report is entirely fabricated,
00:58the voiceover is AI-generated,
01:00and elements of the Ukrainian presidential website
01:02have been digitally manipulated.
01:05This video is part of an anti-Ukrainian disinformation campaign
01:08spread by a Russian bot network called Matryoshka.
01:11The original footage comes from an interview with the Associated Press,
01:15recorded three months earlier.
01:16A comparison of both versions shows that the painting in the background is different,
01:21meaning the stolen painting was artificially inserted into the video.
01:25At the time the interview was recorded,
01:27the work that actually hung in that spot was by Ukrainian artist Andry Chebotaru,
01:32depicting Mondemergyi in Crimea, the artist's home region.
01:36He told the cube that several of his works were gifted to Zelenskyy by France.
01:39And this is not an isolated case.
01:42In October 2025, similar pro-Kremlin networks falsely claimed Ukrainian refugees
01:47had been arrested by French police in connection with last year's Louvreist.
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