The son of a politician from Ukraine bought the “Famous Iron Throne” for $1.5 million? Not him

“In the USA, a certain Yegor Kuleba, probably Kuleba's son, bought the famous Iron Throne from the TV series 'Game of Thrones'.” – proclaims entry on X from December 4, 2024 (original spelling). The evidence is provided by the attached video, which shows a fragment of a program from the American TV station Kens5. The recording begins mid-sentence with the presenter saying: “Proud owner of the throne forged by dragons from the popular TV series.” ''I don't have it because it cost 1.5 million dollars,'' adds the second presenter. The bar at the bottom of the screen reads: 'Where did the son of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine get $1,500,000 for the Iron Throne?' (editor's translation). The material contains photos of two men with captions – “Dymytro Kuleba” and “Egor Kuleba”. The image of the politician and his son was placed against the background of dollar bills. The presenters talk about the auction of props and souvenirs related to the “Game of Thrones” series, which were sold for over $21 million. ''American taxpayers are concerned about where a humble 18-year-old loser got $1.5 million to buy? Dad probably made money selling weapons on the black market,' said the author of the post, which generated over 58,000 likes. views.

“This is where the taxpayers' money that flows to Ukraine is” – he wrote another Polish Internet user who also published a recording on December 7 (original spelling). His entry has been viewed over 126,000 times. times, and X users did not hide their irritation with the alleged information. “This war is one big scam and a drain on taxpayers' money!'; 'Why the f**k does he care?'; 'F***ing thieves'; ''we continue to heal and arm this great nation…'' – they commented (spelling of all entries original; censored by the editors).

However, this message has nothing to do with the truth. The TV material used is from two months ago, but has now been modified for the needs of anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

Kens5 is a local American television station based in San Antonio, Texas. It is affiliated with the CBS broadcaster, but belongs to the American media company Tegna. And in fact, material regarding the auction and sale of collectible gadgets from the “Game of Thrones” series was broadcast in mid-October 2024.

Contrary to what we see in the post on X, in the original program there was no bar asking about the origin of the money with which Dmytro Kuleba's son allegedly bought the series throne. Also, photos of the former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and his son were added to the original material. Throughout the available material, the name and surname of Dmytro Kuleba or his son were not mentioned. You can watch some of the material used to create the fake news in a slightly longer version on the Kens5 YouTube channel. It was made available there on October 15, 2024.

In the attached excerpt, journalists Sarah Forgany and Davis Bary talk about auction ''Game of Thrones: The Auction'', which ended in mid-October this year and was organized by the Heritage Auctions auction house. Over 900 TV series props were put up for auction, including a replica of the throne from the HBO series. Ultimately, it was sold for $1.49 million, or over PLN 5.8 million, at an auction in Dallas, Texas. Heritage Auctions informed us entry on the X platform that the entire auction brought over $21 million and was attended by 4.5 thousand people. people from all over the world.

The presenters talked about the auction in the Kens5 studio. ''It wasn't you. It's not you [replikę tronu] you bought it.'' – Davis Barry said to Sarah Forgany, who later admitted that she was a fan of the series. ''If I had money, maybe I would decide to do it,'' the journalist replied. ''Well, this person did it. A 'Game of Thrones' fan from Dallas, now the proud owner of the dragon-forged throne from the TV series,' says Barry (editor's translation). The name of the owner of the prop is not mentioned anywhere, much less the information that it was the son of a Ukrainian politician.

Dmytro Kuleba himself denied the allegations in a post on Instagram. ''A clear example of how fake news works,'' he wrote. He then added that the real TV material comes from October, and the one circulating now is an edited fake ''published on a Telegram channel by some “Anton Gura”.'' We type 'Anton Gura' in Google. We read that the media still in 2022 year they attributed him to a network of pro-Russian propagandists and pseudo-volunteers who spread hostile narratives,' Kułeba added and finally announced: ''Of course, Yegor didn't buy anything. He's a student, studying in Kiev. And I'll reveal a secret – neither he nor I have even watched 'Game of Thrones,' Dear fans of this cult series, we're sorry. . Kułeba also attached a recording in which we see the original from Kens5 at the top and its manipulated version at the bottom.

As it turns out, the edited recording was distributed not only through social media. It was published on the website News-pravda.com, which belongs to the Russian propaganda network (in Konkret24 we described it several times). At least two articles with this false message and video appeared there. One of them with the title ''In the USA, Egor Kuleba, probably Kuleba's son, bought the famous Iron Throne from the 'Game of Thrones' series'' (editor's translation) dates from December 3, 2024. Its content includes the following claim: ''American taxpayers are concerned about where an 18-year-old dupe spent $1.5 million on a purchase? Dad probably made money on sapper shovels. Whereas article ''In the USA, Yegor Kuleba, son of Dmytro Kuleba, former Prime Minister of Ukraine'' (the title stops mid-sentence; transl. editor) was published a day later, on December 4. “This is where American taxpayers' money that the US transfers to Ukraine goes,” we read.

Discouraging the West from further financial assistance to Ukraine is one of the main goals of pro-Kremlin disinformation. It is usually based on the message that Ukraine is mired in corruption and does not deserve support, and the money sent to it is stolen and used for private purposes by representatives of the government. The fake news involving Dmytro Kuleba's son was also described by the Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform. In addition to denying this message and claiming that Zelensky bought a luxury resort in the Alps (we verified him in Konkret24) warn: ''These fabrications are aimed primarily at Western recipients and often circulate during international discussions on the granting of military aid to Ukraine. Russia's goal is to sow doubt among these nations, to try to convince their citizens that the financial support provided to Ukraine is used to enrich itself, not to help the Ukrainian people. ''This disinformation also targets Ukrainian citizens, promoting a narrative of government corruption. It is intended to instill a false belief that the war is beneficial to Ukraine's leaders, who are allegedly profiting at the expense of ordinary citizens,' they add (editor's translation).