Does a video show Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy doing a crotch-jiggling belly dance in a nude sparkly leotard? No, that's not true: The footage is doctored -- it uses video of Argentinian dancer Pablo Acosta with the head of Zelenskyy. Acosta posted the original video showing himself in the bedazzled flesh-colored bodysuit with high boots on his own Instagram page in June 2023.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on September 29, 2023, but went viral again in February 2024, under the title "President of #ukraine🇺🇦." It opened with a man wearing a flesh-colored bodysuit with sequins and high boots doing a crotch-shaking belly dance to fast-paced music.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Feb 27 21:32:55 2024 UTC)
The video shows what appears to be Zelenskyy gyrating in a glitter dance costume, thrusting to the fast-paced music. However, the man shaking his body in the bodysuit is Pablo Acosta, an Argentinian dancer, who posted the video on his Instagram page on June 25, 2023 (archived here):
The gyrating dance moves and the outfit on Acosta matches the video that has Zelenskyy's head on it. Both men have small beards and mustaches but this screenshot shows it's not Zelenskyy:
(Source: Pablo Acosta Instagram screenshot taken on Tue Feb 27 21:40:15 2024 UTC)
Before becoming president of Ukraine, Zelenskyy was an actor and competed on the Ukrainian version of "Dancing With the Stars," which he won in 2006 as this video posted on YouTube (archived here) shows.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about claims related to Volodymyr Zelenskyy can be found here.
