Did the BBC report that Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska tried to escape to Europe and was put under the guard of the national Security Service when the attempt failed? No, that's not true: In a statement to Lead Stories, a BBC spokesperson refuted the claim, referring to the viral video as "fabricated content that impersonates the BBC." No credible media organization ever reported the purported news.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on April 4, 2025. It opened:
🇺🇦 UA | 🇪🇺 EU | 🏴☠️ NATO: Yelena Zelenska is reportedly unavailable to the media due to a failed escape attempt.
Zelensky's wife planned to flee to an unnamed European country. However, the escape failed and she is now under strict SBU guard. The alleged reason for the escape is a strained relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky and a number of unspecified political disagreements. Source in the image.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The shared video clearly displayed the BBC logo, implying that it was an authentic report by the British public broadcaster.
However, a BBC spokesperson told Lead Stories via email on April 8, 2025, that the broadcaster had nothing to do with the clip:
This is not BBC journalism. Whenever we are notified about fabricated content that impersonates the BBC we take the necessary action. We encourage everyone to use credible, trusted sources of news.
A Google search across the BBC website for the keywords seen here showed no matching reports published between the first day of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war and this writing:
(Source: Google screenshot by Lead Stories)
A search for the same keywords (archived here) across credible media organizations indexed by Google News did not show a single outlet ever reporting the purported story:
(Source: Google screenshot by Lead Stories)
The viral video on X suggested that Zelenska's "whereabouts are kept secret from the general public." While advanced security measures for high-ranking public figures are not uncommon when countries are at war, Zelenska did not entirely disappear from the public view. For example, on the day of the post's publication, a video of the Ukrainian First Lady (archived here) was uploaded to the website of Ukraine's President. One day earlier, the President's website published images of Zelenska (archived here) from an official meeting.
Ukraine's state-funded Center for Countering Disinformation said on X (archived here) that the claim about Zelenska was false, too.
The same claim was previously reviewed by Logically Facts.
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It is not the first time false claims have targeted Olena Zelenska. Lead Stories debunked those allegations here.
Lead Stories fact checks concerning statements about the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war can be found here.
