Donald Trump Jr. shares altered video purporting to show Volodymyr Zelenskyy belly dancing
Video is an altered version of a dance performance by a dancer with no connection to Ukraine's president
CLAIM
A video shared on X with the caption “Zelenskyy before he became a CIA plant for regime change in Ukraine” and reshared by Donald Trump Jr. purported to show the Ukrainian president dancing at an 18th birthday party.
BACKGROUND
The video was shared by an account called @RealJessica05, who has over 509,000 followers and says in her bio: “Defeating wokeness one post at a time.”
The @RealJessica05 account frequently shares anti-Democrat memes and videos and content supportive of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the current U.S. administration.
On February 19, the account shared a video showing a man, purportedly Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, belly dancing while wearing a red outfit.
The video was originally posted to X in February 2024 by an account called ‘Culture War‘, which captioned it: “Ukraine Victory Dance”. It was earlier shared to other social platforms, including Instagram.
The recent @RealJessica05 post was viewed over 7 million times — helped by a reshare by Donald Trump Jr. later on February 19 in which he wrote: “Zelenskyy should really just go win the war without our endless $$$. Let’s see how that works out.”
The X post by Trump Jr. came after his father, President Donald Trump, made a series of claims about Zelenskyy in a lengthy post on Truth Social.
Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator” refusing to hold elections and said that he has done a “terrible job, his country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died”.
Trump also said: “Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.”
The comments were widely criticised by world leaders and challenged by international fact-checkers. Zelenskyy’s first five-year term of office was due to end in May 2024, but since Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, elections are lawfully suspended.
In November, all of the Ukrainian parties in parliament supported postponing elections until the war ends. Zelenskyy has vowed to hold a new election once the conflict ends.
Furthermore, the law banning elections during wartime was passed in 2015, before Zelenskyy was elected.
METHOD
The veracity of the video was immediately called into question in Community Notes and in replies to the Donald Trump Jr. post.
A reply under Trump Jr.’s post included a link to a TikTok video from 2022. The TikTok video is the same as that posted to X, except the face of the dancer.
Although the dancer’s face shares some visual similarities to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, it is clearly not the same face in the video posted to X.
The TikTok user is a Moscow-based dancer and choreographer, according to his Instagram profile. On Instagram Stories, he confirmed with a laughing face emoji that his video filmed in 2019 was posted by Donald Trump.
A version of the video posted over a year ago had also already been fact-checked.
This analysis confirms that the clip does not show Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but was a previously debunked altered video that resurfaced in February and shared to a wide audience by Donald Trump Jr.
RATING
The video is an altered version of a dance performance by a dancer with no connection to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: Zelenskyy before he became a CIA plant for regime change in Ukraine. [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: Ukraine Victory Dance [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: Zelenskyy should really just go win the war without our endless $$$… [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
Paternoster, T. (2025). European leaders back Zelenskyy after Trump calls him a ‘dictator’. [online] euronews. [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
Murphy, M., Horton, J. (2025). Fact-checking Donald Trump’s claims about war in Ukraine. [online] Bbc.com. [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
Instagram.com. (2025). Vusal Mehdiyev (@vusaaaal) • Instagram photos and videos. [online] [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
Uliana Malashenko (2024). Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Dancing — It Was Doctored To Add His Face. [online] Leadstories.com. [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].