American billionaire George Soros, who founded the Open Society Foundations to support democracies worldwide, is a frequent target of false claims online. Social media users now claim he's related to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A Facebook post shared April 6 shows a screenshot of a now-deleted April 5 tweet.
"Volodymyr Zelensky (sic) is a cousin of George Soros. Pentagon officials say," the text reads.
The Facebook post generated over 300 interactions in less than a week, and the tweet amassed over 4,000 interactions. Similar posts have generated hundreds of interactions on Facebook and Twitter.
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But a spokesperson for the Department of Defense said the claim is false. Pentagon officials have not said Zelenskyy and Soros are cousins, as other independent fact-checking organizations have reported.
USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment.
The purported statement cited in the Facebook post does not exist, according to a statement the Pentagon issued to USA TODAY.
USA TODAY also did not find the statement on the Department of Defense's website, in any credible news reports or in videos of the department's press briefings.
False claims about Soros and Ukraine have surfaced before.
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