Zelensky did not buy French ski resort property
- Published on December 5, 2024 at 23:03
- 7 min read
- By Louise DALMASSO, AFP France
- Translation and adaptation Daniel Patrick GALGANO , AFP USA
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"Zelensky has purchased €88 million hotel in Courchevel ski resort in France. Courchevel is known to be wildly popular with billionaires, Hollywood celebrities and British royals," says a November 28, 2024 X post with tens of thousands of interactions.
"In case you were wondering how your tax dollars are being spent. Repost this So THEY KNOW that we know what is happening!"
The post includes a video of a man standing outside the resort supposedly purchased by the Ukrainian leader, speaking as if he were reporting for a television news broadcast. He claims Zelensky bought Le Palace des Neiges hotel at France's Courchevel ski resort through a Belize-based company called Film Heritage Inc.
"The purchase price is believed to be 88 million euros. Courchevel is one of the most popular ski resorts in France. The hotel is located in the most luxurious place of the resort, which is surrounded by Michelin restaurants," the video's voiceover says in French.
The same claim and clip have circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky and Gettr -- including in French, German, Czech, Romanian and Russian.
A network of French-language websites that AFP has previously fact-checked for making false, pro-Kremlin claims about Zelensky and Russian opposition figures also promoted the video.
Zelensky has frequently been the target of misinformation -- especially claims that he has bought luxury goods or is stealing public money. The disinformation campaign seeks to undermine Western support for Kyiv and discredit Zelensky as Russian and Ukranian soldiers continue to trade fire.
Claims about the Courchevel luxury hotel are similarly false.
While Zelensky has ties to Film Heritage Inc, neither the company nor Zelensky purchased the hotel. Monaco-based conglomerate Société des Bains de Mer (SBM), a publicly traded firm that operates Monte Carlo casinos and other properties, has owned the five-star resort since 2023.
An October 2023 statement announced the acquisition (archived here), and SBM told AFP on December 2, 2024 that social media posts claiming it sold the hotel to Film Heritage Inc are "fake news."
SBM said in a September 2024 financial report that it was planning a renovation for a December 2026 reopening and that the property was acquired as part of its international expansion plans (archived here).
The Center for Combating Disinformation, a Ukrainian government agency, in a November 30 statement denied online rumors that Zelensky had taken over the French resort (archived here and here).
Website created in November 2024
The online video claims to show the Palace des Neiges's "official website," which contains a copyright notice from Film Heritage Inc, suggesting the company had bought the property. However, the webpage shown in the clip is not authentic.
The fake website, hotelpalacedesneiges.com, is almost identical to the hotel's actual site, palacedesneiges.com -- except for the domain and the copyright message at the bottom of the page, which replaced the hotel's logo. The counterfeit site has since gone offline, and SBM has begun redirecting visitors to a redesigned page.
WHOIS, a tool showing who owns a domain and when it was set up, indicates the imposter website was registered November 22, 2024 -- a few days before the video began circulating online. The hotel's genuine website has been up since at least 2007 (archived here and here).
Video origins
A keyword search for some of the statements made in the video revealed a November 28 article titled "Zelensky's company bought a hotel in the Courchevel ski resort" on a website called "Les Echos de la France." The webpage includes the same clip and a hyperlink to the fake Palace des Neiges website.
The top-right corner of the video contains the initials "EF," indicating the video was originally made for Les Echos de la France. The website -- which a WHOIS search shows was created November 25 (archived here) -- has a name similar to the French financial journal Les Echos.
The site contains several articles that have been copied and pasted from other publications without attribution, including a piece about "the crisis of French capitalism," which appeared November 24 on a far-left page called "Revolution permanente" (archived here).
While the claims about Zelensky are inaccurate, the video does appear to have been filmed at the Palace des Neiges in Courchevel.
The same architecture, circular sign on the roof and group of poles near the front of the building appear on Google Street View.
AFP could not identify either man in the video, but the newsroom background where the video's narrator appears is freely available on YouTube (archived here).
Pandora Papers
Although Film Heritage Inc did not buy the hotel, Zekensky does have connections to the company.
The Pandora Papers, published in October 2021(archived here), show the Ukrainian president once owned Film Heritage Inc and transferred it to his wife Olena Zelenska in 2019 (archived here).
The papers were published before the Russian invasion as part of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which relied on some 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies.
The investigation accused Zelensky of setting up a network of offshore companies from 2012 onward -- notably based in Belize -- that was partially used to buy three luxury properties in London.
According to documents, just before his election in 2019, Zelensky sold his shares in one of these offshore companies to his then-business partner Serguï Shefir, who later became his chief adviser.
AFP has debunked other claims about Zelensky here.
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