No, Ukraine's President Zelenskyy did not buy Sting's wine estate in Italy

What is the claim?

Allegations that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought a wine estate in Tuscany, Italy, in June 2024 are circulating widely online. 

An X (previously Twitter) caption reads, "BOMBSHELL: Zelensky just bought a €75 MILLION luxury wine estate in Italy with your tax payer money!" The post has over 2.5 million views (example archived here). 

Other X users asserted, "British singer Gordon Sumner, widely recognized as Sting, has recently parted ways with his Tuscan wine estate, Tenuta il Palagio, selling it to San Tomaso S.R.L., a firm owned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his spouse, Olena Zelenska. The transaction is rumored to be valued at approximately €75 million!" (example archived here)

The claim was shared across multiple social media sites, including X, TikTok, Telegram, Instagram, Threads, and Facebook (examples archived here, here, and here).

These online posts cite an article by Database Italia as proof. The article supposedly shows purchase documents of the Sumners selling the wine estate to the San Tomaso S.R.L. company on June 28, 2024, retracted from Italy's land registry.

However, Logically Facts found that the purchase documents are fabricated and the Sumner couple still owns the wine estate.

What did we find?

A Google search did not lead us to any news from reputable sources stating that the purchase happened. However, when we searched in Italian, we found a fact-check by the Italian fact-checking organization Facta, refuting the claim.

As the Italian land registry, Agenzia delle Entrate, requires Italian ID credentials to log in, we contacted Facta to confirm the wine estate's ownership. They verified that the Tenuta il Palagio estate currently belongs to Gordon Sumner and his wife, Trudie Styler, and was not recently purchased by President Zelenskyy or the San Tomaso S.R.L. company.

Facta provided us with the official Italian registry records dated August 8, 2024, to confirm the ownership of the Tenuta il Palagio wine estate. President Zelenskyy's name or San Tomaso S.R.L. are not listed in the official records.

Therefore, the purchase documents provided by Database Italia have been fabricated. The website is known to spread false information. "Database Italia was among the most influential disinformation sites in Italy in 2020 and 2021. It published disinformation on several topics, including Covid and QAnon," Facta told Logically Facts.

We also looked into Tenuta il Palagio's social media accounts. Its Instagram description still states, "Sting and Trudie Styler's vineyard and Tuscan home." We found posts of Sting visiting Italy after the date of the supposed purchase. On August 9, the wine estate's Facebook account posted a picture of Sting with the caption: "We know when Sting is back in his Tuscan sanctuary because the air is filled with song and melodies…" The wine estate was purchased by the couple in 1997.

The company San Tomaso S.R.L. is listed in President Zelenskyy's 2023 annual income declaration (translated from Ukrainian). In 2019, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reported that Zelenskyy owned a villa in the Italian coastal town of Forte-dei-Marm in Tuscany. Accordingly, San Tommaso S.R.L. bought the villa in 2017 for roughly €3.8 million. 

However, this villa or any other property or estate in Italy was not listed in the 2023 annual income declaration, nor did it appear in earlier income statements or other reporting on Zelenskyy's assets. In 2022, Forbes reported that Zelenskyy sold the villa in 2020 as it had not appeared in his declarations since 2019. This villa is not the same as the wine estate that Zelenskyy supposedly recently acquired.

The Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation also refuted the claim and called it "part of a Russian large-scale disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and First Lady Olena Zelenska."

We contacted the Tenuta il Palagio wine estate and the Office of the President of Ukraine but have yet to receive a response.

President Zelenskyy's and his wife Olena Zelenska's wealth has spurred multiple false claims about the couple's purchases. Logically Facts has previously covered and refuted similar false claims – including Ukraine's President Zelenskyy did not buy a casino resort in Cyprus, Olena Zelenska did not purchase a Bugatti with taxpayer money, and unfounded allegations that President Zelenskyy acquired Highgrove mansion from the British royal family.

The verdict

President Zelenskyy nor the San Tomaso S.R.L. company did not buy the Tenuta il Palagio wine estate in Tuscany in June 2024. According to Italian land registry records, the estate is owned by the singer Sting and his wife. The documents showing the purchase were fabricated, and the claim originated from a website known for spreading false information. Therefore, we marked the claim as false.