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| - A video purporting to be a BBC news report about Ukrainian businessmen making donations to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is fake.
It has been shared on X (formerly Twitter), and also on Facebook. The video claims that “three of Ukraine’s richest businessmen have donated $8m to Donald Trump’s election campaign”.
Text within the video, which features a BBC watermark, also claims the report has been produced with investigative journalism organisation Bellingcat.
The video claims the donations occurred after the attempted assassination of the Republican presidential candidate on 13 July and says they were made through “cryptocurrency transactions” to Mr Trump’s “cryptocurrency wallet”.
However, both the BBC and Bellingcat have denied that the video is genuine. When contacted by Full Fact, the BBC confirmed that it is not a genuine report and a spokesperson from Bellingcat said it was “fabricated”.
Olga Robinson, assistant editor at BBC Verify shared a screenshot of the clip on X with the caption: “Another fake BBC/Bellingcat video is doing the rounds.”
She added it was the “latest in a series of fakes” targeting both the BBC and Bellingcat.
Bellingcat also replied directly to a now-deleted account sharing the video on X, saying: “This is a fake BBC report. Bellingcat has not published any such findings.”
We could not find any examples of the video on the BBC News website or any of its social media platforms, or on the Bellingcat site, or its social media pages.
Political candidates’ campaigns in the US are prohibited from accepting contributions and donations from foreign nationals.
Bellingcat told us earlier this year that a number of other similar videos created in the style of a BBC report and quoting non-existent research from its organisation have been circulating, and described it as a “targeted disinformation campaign”.
This is not the first time Full Fact has come across ‘imposter content’—fake content that appears to be from credible organisations, particularly media organisations. The subject of these has often been related to Ukraine.
We previously debunked another fake BBC and Bellingcat video making unsubstantiated claims about a multi-million dollar payment to a Ukrainian general, and have fact checked other videos falsely presenting to be from Euronews reporting that the Ukrainian Embassy told French farmers to stop protesting, and a fake USA Today video about a supposed “brawl” involving a Ukrainian delegate in a New York bar.
It’s important to consider whether what you’re seeing is accurate before sharing online. We've published guides with tips to help you check whether images and videos show what they claim to.
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