Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 13/1/2026; Author: Suljo Ćorsulić
What is being claimed?
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is a citizen of Israel and holds an Israeli passport.
What are the facts?
The image of a passport stating that Zelenskyy is an Israeli citizen is a forgery.
On 15 December, 2025, posts were shared on Facebook, Instagram and Threads claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds Israeli citizenship. These posts included images of an Israeli passport allegedly issued to Zelenskyy.
In the earliest such Facebook post, as well as in others, the claim that Zelenskyy has Israeli citizenship was placed in the context of domestic politicians who allegedly have a “backup homeland” and whose decisions are supposedly made by “foreigners”.
Ukrainians don’t mind being commanded by a foreign citizen… It’s the same here. We are led by people who have a backup homeland. When they themselves don’t know, and we don’t know what to do, let’s listen to foreigners.
Israeli passport – Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a sample of a control Israeli passport… no lies no deception.
Our bandits’ backup country is Holland, the city of The Hague.
Such posts on Facebook (1, 2), Instagram and the social network Threads generated significant engagement.
A Forged Passport Image
Claims that the Ukrainian president holds an Israeli passport have appeared in the local language since at least 2020, mostly on internet forums (1, 2).
The image of an Israeli passport allegedly proving that Zelenskyy holds Israeli citizenship is a forgery. The circulation of this image in December 2025 was also addressed by regional fact-checking portals Faktograf, Raskrinkavanje (.me) and Istinomer (.rs).
The image shows an issuance date of 2016. Ukraine allowed dual citizenship only in 2025. The law governing the election of the President of Ukraine clearly stipulates that only Ukrainian citizens over the age of 35 who have resided in Ukraine for at least ten years may run for this office. Therefore, the passport shown in the image shared on social media, besides being illegal, would also have constituted an obstacle to Zelenskyy’s candidacy for president.
For years, disinformation has circulated on social media claiming that Zelenskyy holds passports from various countries, such as the United Kingdom, the Bahamas, Russia, and Israel. After such claims resurfaced on social media in 2025, they were also analyzed by Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation. According to this research organization, such claims stem from the premise that passports of multiple countries were allegedly found in November 2025 during a search of the apartment of the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, who later resigned.
It is true that his apartment was searched by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), but no passports were found that would prove Zelenskyy holds citizenship of other countries. As the Center for Countering Disinformation stated on the social network X, the alleged images of Israeli and other passports are forgeries that use photographs of Zelenskyy taken from the websites of official institutions.
The falsehood of these claims is also confirmed by the passport photographs circulated by anonymous channels. They use official photographs of the president, which could certainly not be used in real identity documents.
Hybrid Warfare
In addition to claims that Zelenskyy holds an Israeli passport, disinformation has also circulated in previous years alleging that his wife, Olena Zelenska, holds citizenship of that country. Such claims were analyzed by the platform Raskrinkavanje (.me).
Zelenskyy is often the target of disinformation that attributes Nazism and antisemitism to him (1, 2, 3). At the same time, disinformation about Zelenskyy, who is ethnically Jewish, frequently builds on antisemitic clichés and conspiracy theories portraying him as a Jew who causes wars and controls the world due to alleged financial and political power. Claims that he holds Israeli citizenship fall into this category of disinformation.
Disinformation targeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of his family became more frequent after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Raskrinkavanje has repeatedly written about such narratives. For example, information about the wealth of Zelenskyy and his wife is often manipulated; he is falsely accused of purchasing casinos, banks and luxury cars; and fabricated images allegedly showing his drug use or attendance at pride parades are frequently shared.In addition to targeting Zelenskyy personally, disinformation about the invasion and the war in Ukraine is widespread and is used as part of a hybrid war against the country, largely relying on Russian propaganda narratives.According to the abovementioned facts, we rate the earliest post sharing a forged image of an Israeli passport bearing the name and photograph of the Ukrainian president as fake news. Later posts are rated as fake news spreading.
