00:00Why was Ukraine's U.S. ambassador accused of stealing champagne after the Washington Media Dinner shooting?
00:10Who is the woman in this viral social media clip?
00:14Examining bottles of wine amid the chaos following the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner on the 25th of
00:20April.
00:20Some social media users claim that it's Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S.
00:24Olga Stefanishina, with many posts racking up hundreds of thousands of views.
00:29In fact, the woman in question is not Stefanishina.
00:32The woman sitting leaving with the bottles was wearing a black slit dress under a black fur coat,
00:37while Stefanishina wore a silver ruffled feather ensemble,
00:41which we can see in the before and after photos of the incident that she shared on her Facebook account.
00:46We weren't able to independently verify the identity of the woman featured in the footage circulated across social media,
00:52but we can confirm that it is not Olga Stefanishina.
00:55Certain users have also tried to link the false claims about Stefanishina to an ongoing and unrelated investigation
01:02by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
01:05The NABU, alongside Ukraine's Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office,
01:09accuses Stefanishina of complicity in the embezzlement of more than 2.5 million Ukrainian revenue
01:16in public funds between 2013 and 2014, when she served as a unit head in the Ministry of Justice.
01:23That was the equivalent of around 225,000 euros at the time.
01:28Stefanishina has consistently maintained her innocence and argues that any wrongdoing was a legacy from a previous political era.
01:35The White House Correspondents' Dinner has been a breeding ground for misinformation,
01:40sparking conspiracy theories that the attack was a false flag operation.
01:44Pro-Russian narratives also often falsely accuse Ukrainians of criminal activity tied to significant news events
01:50in an effort to discredit them and weaken Western support for Kyiv.
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