Search

𝗧𝗵𝗲 $𝟰𝟯 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗭𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗸𝘆𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 A Norwegian royal residence, a $43 million price tag, an offshore company historically linked to Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a video apparently produced by the American entertainment outlet E! News. The story contained enough authentic details to look plausible. It was also fabricated. At the end of September 2026, social-media accounts began circulating a video claiming that Film Heritage Inc., a Belize-registered company with historical links to Zelenskyy and his family, had purchased the Norwegian royal estate of Skaugum for approximately $43 million. The property was described as covering 240 acres, while the supposed transaction was linked to Zelenskyy’s visit to Norway for the funeral of King Harald V. Independent investigations found no evidence that such a sale had ever taken place. 𝗔 𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 The fabrication was carefully constructed around genuine information. King Harald V had died in August 2026, and Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska travelled to Oslo for his funeral on 9 September. Skaugum is also a genuine royal estate in Asker with a long history as a residence of Norway’s heir to the throne. The false report turned those facts into a fictional property transaction. It claimed that Zelenskyy had previously attempted to buy the estate, that the Norwegian royal family had rejected an earlier approach and that the purchase had finally been completed after the property supposedly became a financial burden. No documentary evidence supporting any of these claims has emerged. Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs later confirmed to fact-checkers that the allegation was false. Searches of established Norwegian and international media also produced no credible reporting about the supposed transaction. 𝗔 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 The most important part of the operation was not the property claim itself. It was the source apparently verifying it. The video was designed to resemble an E! News report, borrowing the visual language of the established American entertainment brand. But investigators found no such story on E! News’s genuine website, social-media channels or archived pages. Instead, the accompanying article appeared on eonline.news, a domain closely resembling E! News’s legitimate eonline.com address. Registration records showed that the imitation domain had been created on 27 September 2026 — only two days before the story was published. The accompanying video also showed signs of synthetic production. Fact-checkers examining the material identified indications that AI tools had been used in the narration and audiovisual elements. The operation therefore did not simply invent a news story. It created an apparently credible media environment around it. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 The supposed buyer was also carefully selected. Film Heritage Inc. was not invented for the fabrication. The Pandora Papers previously documented a genuine historical connection between the Belize-registered company and Zelenskyy’s former business network. Leaked documents showed that Zelenskyy and his wife had held an interest in another offshore company through Film Heritage before changes were made to the ownership structure around his 2019 presidential campaign. That authentic history gave the new fabrication an additional layer of plausibility. The same company name has previously appeared in false narratives alleging extravagant purchases by Zelenskyy, including supposed luxury-property and casino acquisitions. Those stories were also unsupported by evidence. This illustrates a recurring feature of effective disinformation: not every component has to be false. A genuine company can be combined with a genuine trip, a genuine property and a genuine media brand to manufacture an event that never occurred. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗼𝘀𝗵𝗸𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation assessed the operation as consistent with the Russian Matryoshka disinformation playbook. The technique strongly resembles previously documented Matryoshka activity: impersonating established Western media organisations, creating fabricated video reports and distributing them through coordinated or pro-Russian social-media networks. French authorities have documented Matryoshka since 2023 as a pro-Russian influence operation targeting media organisations, public figures and fact-checkers. Investigations have shown repeated use of counterfeit reports imitating major European and North American news brands. The Norwegian-estate story fits that pattern closely. The attribution nevertheless requires precision. Independent evidence establishes that the E! News report was fake, that a newly created imitation website was involved and that the story circulated through pro-Russian information channels. Publicly available forensic evidence does not yet identify a specific individual or technical operator who created this particular asset. It is therefore more accurate to describe the Matryoshka connection as a well-supported analytical attribution rather than a publicly proven chain of command. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 The most important element of the operation is not really the $43 million figure. It is the construction of credibility around it. A genuine royal funeral supplied the timing. A genuine Norwegian estate supplied the location. A genuine offshore company supplied a documented connection to Zelenskyy. A counterfeit E! News website supplied apparent journalistic confirmation. Synthetic audiovisual material supplied what looked like additional evidence. Each element reinforced the others. This reflects a broader change in contemporary disinformation. The most sophisticated operations no longer rely exclusively on fabricating photographs, videos or statements. Increasingly, they fabricate the source that supposedly verified them. The deepfake is sometimes the entire newsroom! 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 Lead Stories — investigation into the fake E! News report https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2026/10/fact-check-enews-did-not-publish-report-about-zelenskyy-buying-43-million-dollar-mansion-from-norways-royal-family.html Center for Countering Disinformation of Ukraine — Norwegian royal estate fabrication https://cpd.gov.ua/en/international-threats-en/europe/fake-about-zelenskyys-purchase-of-a-norwegian-royal-family-estate/ Ellinika Hoaxes — investigation and Norwegian government response https://www.ellinikahoaxes.gr/2026/10/09/agorase-o-zelenski-ektasi-240-stremmaton-apo-ti-vasiliki-oikogeneia-tis-norvigias-gia-43-ekatommyria-dolaria/ The Royal House of Norway — funeral of King Harald V https://www.royalcourt.no/news/the-funeral-of-king-harald-v The Royal House of Norway — Skaugum and the Royal Estates https://www.royalcourt.no/the-royal-court/the-departments-the-royal-court/the-royal-estates-and-parks President of Ukraine — Zelenskyy and First Lady attend King Harald V’s funeral https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/prezident-ukrayini-ta-persha-ledi-vzyali-uchast-u-ceremoniyi-106293 OCCRP — Pandora Papers investigation into Zelenskyy’s offshore network https://www.occrp.org/en/project/the-pandora-papers/pandora-papers-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-ukrainian-president-and-his-inner-circle AFP Fact Check — previous false luxury-purchase narrative involving Film Heritage https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.36PG6EC VIGINUM / SGDSN — Matryoshka technical report https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/files/files/20240611_NP_SGDSN_VIGINUM_Matriochka_EN_VF.pdf CheckFirst — Operation Overload / Matryoshka investigation https://checkfirst.network/operation-overload-an-ai-fuelled-escalation-of-the-kremlin-linked-propaganda-effort/ Keywords #DISINFORMED #Episode19 #Zelenskyy #Ukraine #Norway #Russia #RussianDisinformation #RussianInfluence #Matryoshka #OperationOverload #Disinformation #InfluenceOperations #InformationWarfare #FIMI #MediaImpersonation #FakeMedia #ClonedWebsite #FakeNewsroom #ENews #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIGeneratedContent #VoiceCloning #SyntheticMedia #Deepfake #SourceLaundering #NarrativeLaundering #FilmHeritage #PandoraPapers #Skaugum #NorwegianRoyalFamily #Propaganda #DigitalInfluence #FactChecking #VIGINUM #OSINT #MediaManipulation #WRLD

Joueur du Grenier indicated that he played Squadron 42, the single-player mode of Star Citizen, in advance and had a good time. He praised the immersion, the richness of the environments and life scenes, which he compared to his walks in Night City, in Cyberpunk. He also enjoyed the first-person combat, the visual effects, the sound design, and the music. According to him, the interface was polished and seemed simpler than that of Star Citizen, perhaps in anticipation of a release on consoles. However, he believed that the game would not be suitable for everyone: out of five hours, about three were devoted to cutscenes, with also long sequences where the player followed characters by walking. He described it as a story-driven game rather than a space simulation or gameplay. Joueur du Grenier also reported issues with finishing, lighting, and textures, but said he encountered neither crashes nor significant blocking bugs. He found the artificial intelligence uneven, with some enemies helping each other or throwing grenades, while others seemed unresponsive. He ultimately compared the game to a dream version of Wing Commander and was pleased to have seen Mark Hamill. #StarCitizen #Squadron42 #Gaming (translated)

Chers lecteurs. Nous appelons à y aller mollo sur les attaques contre Thélyson Orélien. D'abord, il existe une chance non nulle (même si elle est infime) qu'il soit de bonne foi. Ensuite, Orélien a sans doute joué dans une zone d'ombre morale, exploité une période de flou au cours de laquelle nos institutions et nos mœurs (ainsi que nos prix littéraires) ne sont pas encore adaptées à cette technologie nouvelle et transformatrice. Mais il ne pensait sans doute pas que le succès de son livre prendrait une ampleur nationale ; et s'il nous a paru important de signaler l'arnaque, il nous parait important d'avoir aussi de la compassion et de l'empathie pour lui, voire le soutenir dans cette période difficile qu'il doit vivre. Le mieux serait bien sûr qu'il se remette à écrire ! Les leçons de cette affaire dépassent son cas personnel, et c'est sur cela que nous devons nous concentrer. Nous avons signalé ce bouquin parce qu'il a du succès, mais c'est loin d'être le seul. Sur ce réseau, des centaines d'hommes politiques et de comptes de slop font rédiger leur posts par IA, sans dire qu'il s'agit d'IA, trompant sciemment leurs lecteurs à longueur d'année. Et cela fait longtemps que les top des ventes de livres sur Amazon (premier distributeur de livres en France) sont trustés par des bouquins rédigés directement par IA, parfois très grossièrement, et avec un moins bon résultat que celui de Thélyson (qui a donc une forme de mérite à avoir réussi à produire une narration cohérente ayant donné satisfaction à beaucoup de lecteurs). L'intelligentsia parisienne sous-estime encore sans doute les capacités des IA, et n'utilise pas ou peu les LLM (et ne traîne pas sur Linkedin), c'est pour ça qu'elle n'a pas reconnu les formules stéréotypées. Formules qui, si nous n'étions pas lassés de les voir sans cesse, nous plairaient sans doute : les modèles de langage les ont apprises parce qu'elles plaisaient aux humains qui ont supervisé leurs entrainements par RLHF ! Dans les commentaires, certains témoignent ne pas voir l'intérêt de l'authenticité ; peut être que ce qu'il faut retenir de cette polémique, c'est que d'après l'ampleur du scandale, la majorité accorde beaucoup d'importance à l'authenticité. Si vous considérez que vous apportez de la valeur en faisant écrire vos ouvrages par IA, faites-le ! Mais au moins, mentionnez-le, pour ne pas trahir vos lecteurs, car le mensonge, lui, est moralement condamnable. #Authenticité #Littérature #IntelligenceArtificielle

@CarolineFourest jetez donc un œil sur les commentaires à votre pauvre tweet haineux. Vous vous rendrez compte que vous ne représentez plus grand chose. Les médias comme @Omerta_officiel progressent. La narration vous échappe. Le réel vous dérange. Vous faites pitié. #Haine #Médias #Narration

L'article célèbre le 25e anniversaire de la série Band of Brothers, produite par Steven Spielberg et Tom Hanks, qui a redéfini la narration télévisuelle sur la Seconde Guerre mondiale en mettant en lumière l'héroïsme des soldats ordinaires à travers une reconstitution réaliste et émotive de leurs expériences sur le terrain. #BandOfBrothers #HBO #SecondeGuerreMondiale

Der Artikel beleuchtet die aktuellen Spannungen in Spaniens Migrationspolitik, die durch die Krise in Ceuta ausgelöst wurden, und zeigt das Spannungsfeld zwischen der Realität von Migrantenleben und der politischen Narration, die die Herausforderungen der Migration sowie den wirtschaftlichen Bedarf an Migranten und die wachsenden sozialen Spannungen in der Gesellschaft thematisiert. #Migration #Spanien #Ceuta

La série The Hack, diffusée pour la première fois en France sur Arte, retrace le scandale des écoutes téléphoniques illégales menées par le tabloïd britannique News of the World, qui a révélé des collusions entre les médias, la police et la politique, tout en rencontrant parfois des difficultés de narration. #TheHack #Murdochgate #écoutestéléphoniques

🔴 Lewis Hamilton qui recadre directement @SkySportF1. 😳 « Je sais qu’en arrivant ici, toi et ton équipe aviez de grandes attentes ». Lewis : "Non, ce n’était pas le cas, ce sont les autres qui avaient des attentes. Nous sommes venus ici en gardant les pieds sur terre. Nous savions qu’ils seraient très, très rapides". Moi je dis bravo. La narration de Sky et compagnie est embarrassante. https://t.co/CVn8OyDshh #F1 #LewisHamilton #SkySports

Salman Rushdie, symbole de la liberté d'expression, retourne à ses racines littéraires en publiant un nouveau livre, La Onzième Heure, et rappelle l'importance des histoires, nourries par son enfance à Bombay, où il a été façonné par la narration et le cinéma, malgré les violences qu'il a subies. #SalmanRushdie #LibertéDexpression #Fiction

Les micro-dramas, nés en Chine, révolutionnent la fiction avec des épisodes ultra-courts conçus pour capturer l'attention rapidement, créant ainsi un nouveau segment en forte croissance dans l'industrie mondiale du divertissement, où chaque minute est remplie de rebondissements et de cliffhangers pour maintenir l'addiction des spectateurs. #micro-dramas #narration #divertissement