Did Ukrainian First Lady, Olena Zelenska purchase jewelry worth more than $1 million dollars in a Cartier store in New York? No, that's not true: Zelenska and her husband, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, were not in New York at the time of the alleged purchase.
The story appeared in a video (archived here) published by pravda_bel on October 5, 2023. The text on the video (translated from Russian by Lead Stories staff) reads:
Olena Zelenska spent more than 1 million dollars on jewelry in New York. Reportedly, Olena Zelenska visited a number of expensive luxury shops, including Armani, Gucci and Cartier. The mentioned sum is most probably just a part of all the Ukrainian President's wife's spending. It is known that she left this much money in Cartier alone. Many were outraged by such expenses, provided the poor condition of the Ukrainian economy.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Oct 9 11:24:50 2023 UTC)
The claim can be traced back to a questionable video shared by an Instagram account named 'gorgeous.bb.jeanette', which had no followers, no prior posts, and lacked any additional account information. The Instagram account has since been removed. The video was originally posted on YouTube (archived here). Within the video, the individual purports to have previously worked at Cartier and claims to have engaged in a dispute with Zelenska, resulting in her termination. Following her dismissal from the job, this former Cartier employee also shared a copy of the receipt for what is alleged to be Zelenska's purchase.
Russian media reported the details of the supposed incident, citing an article that published the receipt for Zelenska's purchase of a bracelet, earrings, and a necklace at the total cost of $1,110,125:
(Source: The Nation screenshot taken on Fri Oct 6 21:09:29 2023 UTC)
The date of the purchase receipt in the Cartier store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan dates September 22, 2023. However, on September 21, 2023, Olena Zelenska accompanied her husband to Ottawa, Canada, where the Ukrainian President addressed the Canadian Parliament the next day, with videos corroborating Zelenska's presence during his speech.
This claim resembles another debunked story from 2022 about Zelenska's shopping expenditures.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to the Zelenskyy family can be found here.
