Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 4/11/2025; Author: Nina Đuranović
One of the most frequent narratives since the beginning of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has been the claim that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has personally profited from the war.
We have read claims that Zelenskyy bought a bank in France, shares in South African mines, an apartment in Dubai for his mother, and owns $1.2 billion in real estate.
Following these allegations, information emerged claiming that the Ukrainian president had purchased a ranch in the U.S. state of Wyoming worth nearly $80 million.
Among other things, posts state: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) (archived here)
“According to available data, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, through the offshore structure Davegra Ltd – linked to the ‘Panama Papers’ scandal – purchased the large Pathfinder Ranch in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The value of the transaction amounted to $79.5 million.
The acquired area of 3,700 square kilometers is larger than the state of Rhode Island and four times larger than the territory of Kyiv. This purchase enabled Zelenskyy to enter the top ten largest private landowners in the United States, taking ninth place on the relevant list.
The legal processing of the transaction was completed on October 24, shortly after the official visit of the Ukrainian president to the United States. Information about the sale was confirmed by the brokerage firm Swan Land Company, which specializes in large real estate transactions.”
The Italian fact-checking platform Facta also examined similar claims (archived here).
In its analysis, Facta pointed out that there is indeed a ranch in the U.S. state of Wyoming called “Pathfinder Ranches,” which is being marketed by the agency Swan Land Company – the same company mentioned in the disputed posts.
However, the property was not purchased by Zelenskyy, nor by any company connected to the Ukrainian president.
In a statement to Cowboy State Daily, a local media outlet from Wyoming (archived here), the organization denied the claims circulating online:
“That claim is completely false. Pathfinder Ranches was listed for sale in August 2025, and the ranch is currently in the process of being sold to an American family-owned ranching company, which plans to continue the cattle-raising tradition for which this property is known.”
The claim that Zelenskyy bought a ranch in the United States worth $80 million was circulated alongside a video explaining the alleged details of the transaction.
The narrator in the video claims that a Cyprus-based company owned by Zelenskyy purchased the ranch in the U.S., and that the sale was brokered by Swan Land Company, a U.S. agency specializing in ranch sales.
The video also features an image allegedly taken from the official Swan Land Company website. This story was shared on Russian websites (archived here) and Telegram channels (archived here).
However, Swan Land Company warned in its statement to the local Cowboy State Daily that the internet domain shown in the disputed video does not belong to them.
The fake website in the video used the address „https://swanlandco.us“, which is now inactive, while the company’s genuine official website is „https://swanlandco.com“ (archived here).
Therefore, the website of the U.S. agency Swan Land Company was deliberately plagiarized in order to spread this inaccurate claim.
To summarize, the news that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy purchased a ranch in the United States for nearly $80 million is entirely fabricated – a fabrication constructed by combining real details with false conclusions. The ranch mentioned in the posts is indeed for sale, and the named U.S. agency is involved in the transaction, but the buyer is neither a company owned by Zelenskyy nor Zelenskyy himself.
For all of the above reasons, we rate these posts as fake news.
The “Fake news” rating is given to an original media report (completely produced by the media that published it) that contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is rated as fake news can be reliably determined to have been created and disseminated with the intent to misinform the public, that is, to present a completely false claim as fact.
