Zelenskyy Did Not Buy Highgrove House From King Charles III

Misbar investigated the viral claim and found it to be fake.

There is no no official statement about the matter and no reliable British media reported such a thing.

Misbar's team managed to trace the source of this claim and found it coming from The London Crier website, which supports this story with a YouTube video. We investigated the video and found it to be unreliable.

The Video Cited By The London Crier Is Not Reliable

A YouTube user named Sam Murphy, whose channel was created on February 5 (just three months before sharing the claim at issue), shared a video on March 31, titled: Volodymyr Zelenskyy purchased Highgrove House from King Charles III for £20+.

In the video, Sam Murphy supported the claims with fake quotes from Grant Harrold, British former butler to King Charles III. However, the video did not refer to any media outlet.

The London Crier Is Not Reliable

The London Crier website that amplified the claim and was used by many users as a source of this claim also can not be reliable. Analyzing the website’s content, Misbar’s team found the website to be suspicious.

According to available records regarding the domain of the website, the London Crier was created on March 26, just a week before coming up with the article in question.

However, at the footer of the website, it is stated that The London Crier was created in 1863 and closed in 2023.

We tried to google search some of the authors of this website like “alberto.young5” and “dennis.marshall10” but did not get any results indicating real journalists holding the same user name.

Furthermore, we ran some of the website content on GPTZero. The result indicated 100% AI-generated content.

The Claim That Zelenskyy Acquired Highgrove House Is Most Likely Russian Propaganda

The New York Times has published an article about the outlets that aim to push Russian propaganda.

As suggested by The New York Times, the logos and names of these outlets evoke a bygone era of American journalism to create a semblance of authenticity. The same could be noticed in The London Crier. The logo of The London Crier which is in black and white evokes a woodcut ink press showing a Dickensian youth screaming out the day's affairs in a London square with the Big Ben in the background.

In addition, it is noticeable that The London Crier updates regularly with major breaking news, creating at first glance the impression of topicality. This too was highlighted in The New York Times article.

Another resemblance with the outlets pushing Russian propaganda is the terms of service page. The terms of service page for The London Crier does not provide the reader with any details. On the contrary, it is filled with Latin words. The page is just there to lend an aura of credibility to posts on social media spreading disinformation.

These types of outlets make an effort follows a pattern the Kremlin has used before as stated by The New York Times: "laundering claims that first appear online through lesser news organizations. Those reports spread again online and appear in still more news organizations, including Russia’s state news agencies and television networks." As noted before, The London Crier first spread this claim until it eventually appeared on the first Russian channel.

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