KYIV (AP) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not purchase two luxury yachts in October and all reports circulating in the media were wrong.
CLAIM: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought two luxury yachts, named Lucky Me and My Legacy, through proxies for more than $75 million.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The companies selling each yacht confirmed to The Associated Press that they are still on the market.
THE FACTS: As the Russia-Ukraine war nears the two-year mark, social media users are falsely claiming that Zelenskyy recently purchased two multimillion-dollar yachts despite the devastating conflict.
“Ukrainian President Zelensky uses proxies to hide ownership of two yachts worth $75.000.000,” a post on X, formerly Twitter, states. “This man will go down in history as the person who destroyed his own country for fame and fortune.”
Many social media posts carrying the claim cite a Nov. 21 story from The Islander, an online publication, that reported Zelenskyy “is now ensnared in a scandal involving the alleged purchase of two luxury yachts, ‘Lucky Me’ and ‘My Legacy,’ worth a combined $75 million.”
The report pinned the supposed purchases on two of Zelenskyy’s associates, citing a video from a small YouTube channel that claimed to have documents showing them buying the yachts on behalf of the Ukrainian president.
But, according to the companies selling the boats, both vessels are still on the market.
“Burgess can confirm that MY LEGACY is currently for sale with Burgess as the exclusive listing brokerage house,” Nicci Perides, a spokesperson for the luxury yacht company, told the AP in an email. “We can confirm that the yacht has not been sold and therefore remains for sale.”
BehneMar, another luxury yacht company, similarly called claims about its listing for Lucky Me “totally wrong and false,” writing in a statement that it “can confirm that the yacht has not been sold and is still for sale with BehneMar as the exclusive listing company.”
The alleged sales documents read: “Memorandum of Agreement Approved by The Mediterranean Yacht Brokers Association,” an outdated name of the group now called MYBA The Worldwide Yachting Association.
Its name changed in 2008 and the group now uses a different logo than the one that appears on the documents. Blank versions of the documents shown in the YouTube video and on The Islander are available free online.
One of the supposed memorandums lists Lucky Me as being sold on Oct. 18 for $24.9 million to Boris Shefir, who worked with Zelenskyy at his production company Kvartal 95.
The other states that My Legacy was sold exactly a week later for $49.75 million to Shefir’s brother, Serhiy Shefir, who also worked at Kvartal 95 and is now one of Zelenskyy’s top political aides. MYBA did not respond to a request for comment about the claimed sales of Lucky Me and My Legacy.