The article in the Seattle Tribune had everything: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Adolf Hitler and a $15 million classic car. Unsurprisingly, it spread like wildfire across Russia's state and pro-Kremlin media.
But the subject was a strange one for a news site about a U.S. city; such outlets usually cover only local stories.
In fact, the article with headline "Hitler's parade car bought by Ukraine's Zelensky" was another fake spread by Russian propaganda.
There is no such media outlet as the Seattle Tribune, just a website masquerading as a full-fledged publication. And the article itself was a compilation of Russia's disinformation "greatest hits" about Ukraine — "Nazism," "unrestrained corruption" and "wasting American aid."
According to the phony news article, Zelenskyy was spotted in Kyiv exiting a Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser Offener Tourenwagen, Adolf Hitler's parade car. The sighting supposedly occurred just days after the Ukrainian leader returned from Washington, where the U.S. government had allocated an $8 billion aid package to his country.
The article featured a screenshot of a post by the Ukrainian Telegram messenger channel Realna Viyna ("Real War" in Ukrainian) featuring a photo of the vehicle parked in front of the Ukrainian presidential administration building in Kyiv.
However, beyond the Seattle Tribune news site not actually existing, the article had several other glaring problems.
First, Realna Viyna did not publish the post in the screenshot. Second, the image of "Hitler's car" was stolen from a photo widely available on the internet that was digitally edited into an image of the Ukrainian presidential administration building.
VOA found that the angle of photo in the screenshot, a black spot on the asphalt under the car's running board, and the reflection on the front windshield completely match the image of the Mercedes-Benz 770K found across the internet.
Third, the Seattle Tribune website was registered on October 3, 2024, just six days before the fake article was published. And the registration was set for only one year.
The Seattle Tribune appears to belong to a network of disinformation websites controlled by John Mark Dougan, an American living in Russia, according to Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist who fact checks and debunks disinformation at the BBC.
He noted on social network X that creating fake local American news sites is Dougan's standard approach. That conclusion matches VOA's observations about Dougan's network.
A former deputy sheriff in Florida, Dougan was charged with extortion and wiretapping in the United States. In 2016, he fled to Russia and later received political asylum there.
He now operates at least 167 disinformation sites that often publish narratives serving Russian interests, according to a May 2024 investigation by NewsGuard.
Dougan's sites previously attracted widespread attention for spreading a fake story claiming that Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, had purchased a $4.8 million Bugatti supercar during a visit to France for commemorations of the D-Day landing.
That story seemed to be aimed at a Western audience. The fake "Hitler car" story, however, is mostly spreading in the Russian information space. In a message on the Telegram messenger, Dougan told VOA that he was unaware of the Seattle Tribune.
"Never heard of it. But I looked it up [and] heard there's lots of great information on there. A real pillar of journalistic integrity, on par with the NYT, CNN and MSNBC," he wrote, referring to The New York Times and two major U.S. TV news channels.
As is often the case with higher-quality fakes, the phony story about Hitler's parade car combines a fictitious narrative about Zelenskyy with real facts about the sale of a former Nazi parade car in the United States.
The factual information comes from an article in a real American newspaper: The Seattle Times, which reported in February 2018 that the Mercedes-Benz 770K had briefly appeared in the Seattle area after having been put up for auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, a month earlier.
While the vehicle did not sell at the auction, it soon found a buyer. After that, the "Hitler car" was briefly unloaded from a truck in the wealthy Seattle suburb of Medina, where it attracted the attention of a local resident, who told The Seattle Times about it. Later, the car was likely reloaded onto the truck and taken way.
The director of the auction company Worldwide Auctioneers, Rod Egan (his name was also mentioned in the fake Seattle Tribune story), refused to tell The Seattle Times the buyer of the car, citing a non-disclosure agreement.
However, Egan said the car's ultimate destination was "very, very far away" outside the United States.
The Seattle Times article also cited a German media report that six such cars were bought by a Russian billionaire in 2009. Among them was the vehicle mentioned in the fake article.
The fake story about Zelenskyy and the "Hitler car" also recalled a scene from the 2001 American comedy film "Rat Race," in which actor Jon Lovitz steals Hitler's parade car from a fictional museum of Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie and then crashes it into a gathering of American World War II veterans.
Asked whether he was familiar with the film and scene, Dougan replied, "Comedy gold right there."
