Fact Check: Viral video of an Argentinian belly dancer falsely shared as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

Hyderabad: A video of a belly dance is viral on social media with users claiming that the video shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky performing a belly dance wearing a sparkly outfit.

The video was tweeted by an X user Simon Ateba, Chief White House Correspondent at Today News Africa in Washington with the caption, ‘Zelensky has really come a long way, from entertainer and dancer to a global celebrity now being promoted by the military-industrial complex as billions of dollars are released in the name of the American people. WATCH’.

The same video was later shared by Erin Elizabeth Health Nut News, Author, and free speech journalist captioning, ‘This is Zelenskyy. I wonder if he’s ever been to Epstein Island’.

The video has garnered over 250k views on X creating abuzz on social media.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim false as the man dancing in the viral video is Pablo Acosta, a dancer and choreographer from Argentina.

On performing a reverse image search, we found the original version of the video on an Instagram account with the username Pablo Acosta, who is a Dancer, Teacher and Choreographer from Tucuman, Argentina. He works at Ivonn Perfumes. Organizes Tucuman Belly Dance Fest and Mega Dancing.

While it is true that the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky worked in the entertainment industry as a comic actor and could be seen in many music videos, this particular video does not show Zelensky performing belly dance.

You can see a parody music video starring Zelensky here.

NewsMeter thus concludes that the man dancing in the viral video is not Volodymyr Zelensky.