Antifake
Last week, Russian state-controlled news outlet TASS reported a sensational story:
“According to the Turkish newspaper Aydınlık, people close to Volodymyr Zelensky are allegedly funneling around $50 million a month from corruption schemes into the accounts of two companies in the UAE. These firms are said to be tied to Andriy Gmyrin, a former adviser to the head of Ukraine’s State Property Fund.
The paper claims it is revealing for the first time the account numbers where the money is supposedly sent. At the same time, Aydınlık doesn’t publish any copies of documents to back up the bank transfers.
Quoting Ukrainian outlets, the Turkish newspaper adds that between 2021 and 2023 the Gmyrin family bought property in Dubai worth over $14 million. In May 2021, the companies Gmyrin Family Holding and GFM Investment Group were also set up there, which, according to Aydınlık, are where the money is being routed.”
Other Kremlin media outlets add more “details.” For example, Kremlin-controlled Channel One claimed in a news broadcast:
“More and more corruption schemes are surfacing in Ukraine. Members of the Verkhovna Rada say the entourage of the head of the Kyiv regime planned to buy a bank — a French one, no less — in order to launder five billion euros through cryptocurrency. They even wanted to ask Macron himself for help. But for some reason, the deal fell through. That said, some schemes are still very much in operation.
Here’s what the Turkish outlet Aydınlık found: ‘According to this scheme, Zelensky’s inner circle transferred about $50 million a month to the accounts of two companies linked to Andriy Gmyrin, the alleged manager of corruption funds. Both companies are based in the United Arab Emirates.’”
The same story was picked up by pro-regime Russian outlets RBC, Vedomosti, Moskovsky Komsomolets, and Lenta.ru, among others.
The allegations about buying a French bank aren’t new. They first circulated in early March 2025, spread by the Sheikh Tamir Telegram channel, which has repeatedly been used to push anti-Ukraine fake news.
The story has long since been debunked. Vox Ukraine pointed out that the French-language TV channel “TV12,” which featured in Sheikh Tamir’s post, does not exist. There is a channel with that name in Sweden, but it doesn’t broadcast in French, and its logo looks completely different from the one shown on the Telegram channel. The post also contains a screenshot of a Daily Mail article that says nothing about buying a French bank. Another screenshot shows an article that does mention a purchase — but the publication where it appeared cannot be identified, and searching for the article’s title yields nothing. Most likely, it’s another phantom outlet, just like “TV12.”
Fact-checkers from Vox Ukraine reached out to the owners of the bank mentioned in Sheikh Tamir’s post. They confirmed they have no plans to sell.
Sheikh Tamir’s post fits into a broader series of fake news about Zelensky’s supposed extravagant purchases: a hotel and casino in Northern Cyprus, Hitler’s Alpine residence, Hitler’s parade car, and a brand-new Bugatti.
However, Aydınlık’s piece makes no mention of buying a bank — that detail was added later in Russia. The Turkish paper does write about multimillion-dollar transfers to the accounts of companies linked to former official Andriy Gmyrin. His case is being investigated by NABU, and Aydınlık notes that he was detained in Nice in November 2024. The paper provides details of two companies owned by Gmyrin, registered in the UAE. The story includes the bank account number of one of them.
The article, however, offers no evidence of any link between Gmyrin’s companies and Zelensky’s entourage. It claims that $50 million a month is being transferred to Gmyrin’s firms by some “close circle of Zelensky” (Zelenskiy’in yakın çevresi), but provides neither proof of such transfers nor even an explanation of who exactly this circle is supposed to include. In fact, aside from registration data of two perfectly legal companies in the UAE, Aydınlık reports nothing at all — yet presents it as an exposé of corruption.
The paper’s reputation is rather peculiar. It has already come under the scrutiny of our Antifake section when it ran a story alleging that Western diplomats tried to pressure the Kuwaiti press into adopting their stance on the Russia–Ukraine war. A closer look showed the opposite was true: it was the Kuwaiti authorities who suggested that diplomats use softer wording and even drop the word “war.”
When Aydınlık writes about Ukraine and publishes supposed “secret documents” of unclear origin, Kremlin media outlets are quick to quote the reports. The paper openly takes a pro-Kremlin line and at one point even ran articles encouraging people to join the Wagner Group. Aydınlık is linked to Turkey’s marginal Patriotic Party, whose leader, Doğu Perinçek, was once convicted of inciting armed rebellion — a verdict that was later overturned. After that, Perinçek went on to support Erdoğan.