Americans are struggling to buy groceries while Olena Zelenska recently spent millions of dollars on a Bugatti sports car claimed a social media post that has gone viral this week. It follows a previous online claim that the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took a December 2022 shopping trip to Paris where the Ukrainian first lady spent $42,500 on designer clothing and accessories.
These claims are just the latest in an ongoing misinformation/disinformation campaign that is trying to raise questions as to why the United States is supplying military aid to Ukraine.
Look, The Sales Receipt—It Must Be True!
This week’s dubious claim reportedly began with the French-language website Verité Cachée (Hidden Truth), which reported the Ukrainian president and his wife had been given a private presentation of the vehicle during their trip to France in early June during the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
The website also shared a purported invoice and a video with Jacques Bertin, an employee of the Bugatti dealership in Paris, who allegedly sold the car to Olena Zelenska for 4.4 million euros. The video has been debunked as a deep fake, while the receipt has been dubbed fake—noted by typos and missing information including value-added taxes (VAT), which are common for such sales.
“russian propaganda sources spread a fake about Olena Zelenska’s alleged purchase of a Bugatti Tourbillon for 4.5 million euros,” noted a post from Center for Countering Disinformation.
However, even if users add context and the story has been widely debunked, there are still many who accept the story as factual.
“The proliferation of obviously false news is a phenomenon due to bias among various societal sectors. The views of many high-profile people, whether they be political figures, celebrities, or even specific demographics are already somewhat cemented in the minds of many, and these views have become more extreme in recent years,” warned Joe Karasin, social media marketing specialist at Karasin PPC.
What makes this all the worse is that many high-profile users who share such misinformation are increasingly trusted sources.
“High-profile social media users do share this type of information, but whether it gains them new followers or simply endears them to their current followers is somewhat unclear. People like Alex Jones and Ben Shapiro have built strong followings sharing misinformation, but so did radio host Rush Limbaugh 30 years ago,” said Karasin.
Social media has simply amplified the ability to spread misinformation.
“The phenomenon of misinformation and disinformation thrives on social media not only due to cognitive biases but also through the nuances of narrative psychology. People are inherently attracted to stories, especially those that evoke strong emotions or confirm their worldviews,” added Jason Levin, founder of social media strategy provider Cyber Patterns.
This narrative allure often overshadows the need for factual accuracy, making even outlandish misinformation including the recent claims about Ukrainian leadership compelling and shareable.
“An unexpected layer here is the role of modern folklore,” suggested Levin. “Just as folklore in traditional societies explained the unexplainable or instructed moral lessons through tales, modern misinformation often serves similar social functions—it binds communities by common belief or distrust, even in the absence of truth.”
Refusal To Confirm What They Read
It would be easy to debunk this story, even without the added reader context—simply checking valid news organizations would prove stories like this are misinformation. Yet, several factors play into the psychological appeal and success of propaganda including disinformation campaigns.
“The simpler the message, ironically the more likely propaganda is to be picked up and circulated. It does not require extensive explanations or verification,” said Irina Tsukerman, president of Scarab Rising and geopolitical analyst with a focus on information warfare. “Cognitive bias/confirmation bias plays a huge role in disseminating disinformation. In this case, the audience to which the message is geared tends to be already skeptical of government in general, and the U.S. aid to Ukraine in particular.”
In addition, the message builds onto past claims that Zelensky is an independently wealthy person due to his successful acting career, and from there, it is not a far leap of imagination to believe that successful people have big spending habits, are addicted to luxury items, and are corrupt and unscrupulous in general.
“Furthermore, past narratives accusing Zelensky’s wife of corruption such as expensive shopping trips, when linked to another set of narratives—that the aid from the U.S. is being misused—combine to create a seemingly logical chain that is easy to believe by the public hearing the message even if neither part of this logical chain has been verified,” said Tsukerman. “The success of such approaches has been tried and tested again and again and ironically, despite repeated debunking, the same types of people keep falling for the same type of messaging over and over again.”
Who Do You Trust?
Another consideration is that these posts are often accompanied by the claims that the story is being ignored by the mainstream media, which in turn could reinforce its believability to some. Some users have become “trusted sources” on social media by posting what they claim are stories that are being ignored or even purposely buried.
“There are an overwhelming number of sources online today, from new-age blogs to fake social media accounts, making it increasingly challenging to distinguish between what’s genuine and what’s fabricated,” said
Melanie Parncutt, publicist at Otter Public Relations. “Adding to the confusion, the ease with which anyone can purchase verification badges today undermines the credibility of symbols once thought to signify trustworthy sources.”
This saturation of information and the blurring of credibility markers only serve to complicate efforts to discern truth today.
“It’s also not uncommon these days for high-profile users seeking to increase followers or engage their audience to explicitly or implicitly accept that misinformation rides on sensationalism or ideological alignment,” said Parncutt.
The danger is that it isn’t just the fringe that is guilty of spreading misinformation in the guise of being truth-tellers.
“It cuts both ways, as even highly intelligent and public figures like Elon Musk occasionally share patently false stories to stir the pot and make headlines,” explained Karasin. “It is also a ‘badge of honor’ in our social media culture to ‘share the news the mainstream media will ignore.’ It gives the person sharing it a perception of being an insider and ‘too clever’ to fall for the ‘lies,’ which then inflates the ego of the followers that also must be “too clever”. By flattering the audience in this way, these personalities solidify their relationship with their audience and help to propagate false narratives.”
