Russian fake: Hollywood stars visited Ukraine for 'payment' from USAID

Russian Telegram channels and bots on X (formerly Twitter) circulated a screenshot claiming to quote White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, stating that Hollywood stars allegedly visited Ukraine with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

This is fake. Karoline Leavitt never made such a statement. The posts circulated by Russian propagandists do not include a direct quote from the spokesperson. Moreover, this information appeared exclusively in the Russian-language segment of social media and was not reported by any reputable Western media outlet.

Russians have spread similar fakes before. Previously, Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, personally refuted claims that actors Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Orlando Bloom, and Ben Stiller allegedly received payments from USAID ranging from $4 million to $20 million for their trips to Ukraine.

At that time, Russians circulated a falsified news release from the E! News portal.

In addition, the actors themselves publicly denied the claim of a "financial incentive" for visiting Ukraine. For example, Ben Stiller wrote on X that the news was false and came from Russian media.

"Totally false. Untrue. […] I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no personal payments," Stiller wrote.

The fake was also refuted by Sean Penn's lawyer, who confirmed that his client never received any money from USAID for trips to Ukraine.

After the closure of USAID operations in Russia, the country published a large number of anti-Ukrainian fakes. For instance, Ukrinform previously debunked a fake story claiming that the families of captured Azov fighters were sponsored to meet with the Pope.

This disinformation is aimed at promoting a false narrative that Ukraine lacks international support, and that those assisting the country allegedly do so solely for material gain and publicity.

Russian propaganda previously spread a fake story about "graffiti featuring Zelensky and USAID" in the U.S.

Andriy Olenin