Fake footage allegedly shows Zelenskyy's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein

Published on 20/04/2026 - 17:00 GMT+2

Social media users are sharing a postulation of AI-generated images, falsely claiming that they are stills from information camera footage of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gathering convicted enactment offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In the pictures, we tin spot a fig resembling Zelenskyy shaking hands and talking with Epstein, with the accompanying societal media posts alleging that the 2 were adjacent and met each different successful intimate, non-public settings connected the disgraced financier's backstage island.

However, there's plentifulness of grounds to beryllium that the images are fake. Firstly, The Cube, Euronews' fact-checking team, ran them done Google's AI level Gemini, which detected a SynthID connected the image.

A SynthID is an invisible watermark developed by Google which shows that each oregon portion of the contented was created oregon modified utilizing Google's AI tools.

The images are besides grainy and low-quality, which is emblematic of AI-generated contented that tries to fell inconsistencies and mimic information camera footage.

Additionally, the timeline doesn't adhd up. The pictures amusement Zelenskyy arsenic helium has appeared since the commencement of Russia's full-scale penetration of Ukraine successful aboriginal 2022, seemingly wearing his customary greenish T-shirt.

Epstein, however, died successful August 2019, lone a fewer months aft Zelenskyy became president successful May that year.

There's nary credible grounds that the 2 ever met. The Cube has trawled done the Epstein files, the latest tranche of which was released astatine the extremity of January, and portion Zelenskyy's sanction does look successful them, it's lone successful the discourse of quality reports oregon the 2019 elections that saw him go president.

There is nary grounds of a nonstop narration betwixt Zelenskyy and Epstein successful the files.

This isn't the archetypal clip that mendacious claims person tried to nexus the pair. Other fact-checkers person debunked erstwhile instances wherever pro-Russian Telegram channels dispersed mendacious narratives of a transportation betwixt Zelenskyy, Epstein and quality trafficking.

They recovered that, successful those examples too, references to the Ukrainian president were lone made successful narration to quality reports and the 2019 vote.

They besides noted different attempts to propulsion the communicative that Ukrainian elites turned a unsighted oculus to quality trafficking successful Epstein's network, utilizing doctored videos from reputable quality organisations, specified arsenic the autarkic Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo.

Impersonating existent and reliable quality outlets to dispersed disinformation is simply a communal maneuver utilized by pro-Russian propaganda campaigns, specified arsenic the Storm-1516 operation.

Zelenskyy is simply a premier and communal people of specified campaigns, owed to a coordinated effort to effort to discredit him and yet weaken European enactment for Ukraine arsenic Moscow's warfare continues.

The Ukrainian person is not the lone person to beryllium falsely linked to the Epstein files. France's President Emmanuel Macron and the person of the British far-right enactment Reform UK, Nigel Farage, person besides been implicated successful the documents.

There is nary grounds that Epstein met oregon corresponded straight with either of them, contempt societal media claims to the contrary and AI-generated images of them unneurotic circulating online.