Fact check: No, Zelenskyy wasn't killed in a Russian airstrike

Published 25 June 2026 · politics

Amid a flare-up in violence between Russia and Ukraine, viral posts claim Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has died. DW Fact check takes a closer look

Amid a flare-up in violence between Russia and Ukraine, viral posts claim Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has died. DW Fact check takes a closer look. A video of a massive explosion lighting up a city skyline is spreading across social media, along with the claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been killed by a Russian airstrike. The explosion is real, only it has nothing to do with Ukraine. Numerous social media posts allege Zelenskyy was killed over the weekend in a Russian air attack. DW Fact check takes a closer look at this most recent assassination claim and finds the rumor quickly crumbles under scrutiny. Fake assassination claims going viral Claim: "Reports claim a Russian airstrike targeted a secure location in Ukraine, allegedly killing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukrainian media is reportedly covering the incident, though official confirmation remains pending," reads a post on June 20 with 2.7 million views. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is, in fact, alive, contrary to what this viral X post claims Image: X DW Fact check: False Zelenskyy posted a video on his official X account on Tuesday showing him meeting with Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The official OECD X account retweeted the video and confirmed over email that the meeting about Ukraine's bid to join the intergovernmental economic organization took place.

Other details in the claim don't hold up either. Attached to the post, and other identical ones across X, is a 15-second video of a large explosion in a city, with audio of onlookers shouting expletives in English as a bright light fills the screen and mushroom clouds billow out. A reverse image search quickly reveals that the video is of the famous 2015 Tianjin warehouse explosion that killed 173 people, not of an airstrike in Ukraine. The post also claims that Ukrainian media is covering the incident. This is not true. A scan of the country’s major news sites, including The Kyiv Post, Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda, and UNIAN news agency turn up nothing. Death rumors targeting politicians a common tool of disinformation This isn't the first time rumors have spread about Zelenskyy's death. Earlier this month, a nearly identical claim spread that the president had been killed in a Russian airstrike — one of the same accounts posted both claims. And back in 2022, there was a pro-Russia information campaign claiming that Zelenskyy had committed suicide, according to US cybersecurity firm and Google subsidiary Mandiant. It's not just Zelenskyy. Many social media users were convinced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been killed in March, even after he made public appearances and tried to dispel the rumors directly.