A number of posts are being widely shared on social media claiming that the Pentagon had said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the cousin of billionaire George Soros. Several social media users are also sharing a collage of their images to corroborate the viral claim.
These posts are being shared in the context of escalating conspiracy theories regarding Soros’ supporting and managing Ukraine’s anti-Russian defence amid the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.
The post is shared on Facebook with the caption, “Zelensky is a cousin of George Soros. Pentagon official says.”
Here’s the link to the above post.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim and found it to be FALSE.
Starting with our investigation, we checked the official website of the US Department of Defence but could not find any information related to the viral claim.
We also checked the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram handles of the US Department of Defence but could not find any such statement there also.
We also searched for news reports but could not find any article that corroborated the viral claim.
Searching further, we found a fact-check piece published by USA Today that refuted similar claims that Soros had assisted in the coup of the former Ukrainian president in order to enable Zelensky to win power. In 2019, NBC News claimed that Soros was at the centre of a conspiracy theory aimed at promoting charges of collusion with Zelensky’s leadership in Ukraine.
Further, we found another article published on February 11, 2020, in which Zelensky replied to this question “Some people from your own faction call your government the ‘Soros installed government’” stating, “I am not familiar with a person named Soros. I have never met him. I’m definitely not one of that ‘followers of Soros’. There are probably people who studied at the expense of various donor funds and worked for companies that were founded by such funds. And one of these funds is Soros Foundation. I understand that in fact, they received money from the fund of this person for which they studied abroad. The question of the influence of Mr Soros on Ukraine – I do not feel it. I think this is all an exaggeration.”
Thus, it is evident from the above information that the viral claim is false and the Pentagon never claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the cousin of billionaire George Soros.
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