A week after the NATO summit, on July 2, 2025, ONT anchor Dmitry Bochkov said on air that European media had reportedly made humiliating remarks about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s participation in the event. As evidence, the channel showed a screenshot of an English-language article in which the Ukrainian president was likened to a beggar. The anchor quoted the following excerpt:
"Zelensky seemed lost at the NATO summit. In The Hague, he was barred from raising the issue of aid, and European media even made highly dismissive remarks: 'Zelensky was invited to attend, but was told to put away his begging bowl'."
The WTF team traced the article’s origin and discovered it wasn’t a European news outlet but a Russian propaganda resource. The piece was published on the Strategic Culture Foundation website under the .su domain — an abbreviation for Soviet Union. The domain was registered in 1990, before the Soviet Union’s collapse, and is still used in Russia. Technical data confirm the site’s Russian origin.
- The site is hosted on servers in Moscow,
- It is serviced by Russian provider Delta Ltd,
- Its IP address matches that of the foundation’s Russian-language site.
The Strategic Culture Foundation website is a project of the eponymous Russian foundation. According to the U.S. State Department, the foundation is closely tied to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is operated by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. On its website, the Strategic Culture Foundation gives a platform to Western fringe figures and conspiracy theorists, making it appear as an independent voice to a Western audience. The European External Action Service, which fights disinformation, noted in 2019 that the site hides its Russian origins and often cites other Kremlin outlets as international sources.
European media did cover President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s trip to the NATO summit in The Hague — but not in the way ONT’s anchor described. For example, France 24 reported that although President Volodymyr Zelensky managed to speak with Donald Trump, this year he took a back seat, signaling a drop in his status compared to the two previous NATO summits. Major German publication Die Welt wrote that the summit was a disappointment for Zelensky. Leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera noted that Zelensky had expected a cold reception but achieved two tangible results: the U.S. resumed intelligence sharing with Ukraine and pledged to cover a $16 billion budget shortfall.
In other words, actual Western media reported on Zelenskiy’s challenges at the summit — without resorting to humiliating comparisons to a beggar. And the Belarusian state broadcaster ONT passed off a Russian intelligence-run propaganda outlet as European press.
