07:10 / 07.02.2025

Elon Musk spread fake news about Ukraine (video)

American entrepreneur Elon Musk has spread a fake news on his social network X that world stars have been funded to visit Ukraine. This may be connected to the Russian disinformation network "Matryoshka", writes The Insider.

In the video posted by Musk, it is alleged that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) spent American taxpayer money to organize visits of famous people to Ukraine in support of President Zelensky.

A fake video allegedly published by the media company ENews claims that a number of famous actors received large sums of money for visiting Ukraine:

Angelina Jolie - $20 million;
Orlando Bloom - $8 million;
Ben Stiller - $4 million;
Jean-Claude Van Damme - $1.5 million.

Ben Stiller quickly responded to this disinformation, saying that his trip to Ukraine was financed at his own expense and that he did not receive any assistance from USAID. Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation, also stressed that ENews did not publish such material.

Despite the denials, Musk did not delete this false content from the X page for a long time. During this time, a comment appeared under the post from the social network, which stated that the material was created in imitation of the ENews style, but that there was no evidence that the media company had published such news.

In December 2024, it was discovered that the Russian disinformation campaign "Matryoshka" appeared on the Bluesky social network. It was first noticed by the founder of Bellingcat, Elliot Higgins. The campaign consisted of six fake videos, which were created according to the same principle: first, a trusted person (an expert, professor or student of a prestigious university) introduces himself and talks about an environmental topic. Then, without this person's participation, his voice is used to spread anti-Ukrainian narratives, call on the West to improve relations with Russia, and attempt to discredit Zelensky.