FAKE NEWS: An American investment fund owns half of Ukraine

The BlackRock American investment fund owns half of Ukraine and refuses to bury servicemen killed in action, (pro)Russian propaganda writes.

NEWS: BlackRock has demanded that Ukrainian soldiers no longer be buried on company-owned land in Ukraine. BlackRock representatives recently visited Kyiv and demanded that servicemen no longer be buried on company property.

They have already bought 47% of Ukrainian territory. BlackRock demanded that the land not be used for burials and that the bodies be cremated or otherwise disposed of.

NARRATIVE: The American financial giant BlackRock bought almost half of Ukraine’s territory and now refuses to bury the Ukrainian servicemen killed on the front on company property.

Foreign entities cannot own land under Ukrainian law

WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The narrative about the acquisition of Ukraine's assets by Western companies was also circulated in Romania in the fall of 2022, being correlated with the one stating that the Rothschild family allegedly bought Ukraine's external debt. Moreover, in spring this year, another false narrative appeared in public space, which claimed that the Ukrainians were literally selling their land to Poland.

All of these narratives are based on several Russian-language Facebook accounts, which claim that 17 million hectares of Ukrainian farmland have been bought by international corporations under the “Ukraine Development Fund” programme created in 2023. All those posts claim and that Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the corporation behind the transaction, forbade the burial of Ukrainian soldiers killed in action on the frontline on company land, because it would be “an unsustainable waste of valuable farmland”, without indicating however a source.

In fact, the claim that the head of BlackRock banned the burial of Ukrainian soldiers on Ukrainian soil is false and is actually inspired from a satirical Belarusian Russian-language Telegram channel titled “The Empire is very evil”. Moreover, the description the channel added to the post is as eloquent as possible in this regard, stating that the information in question is deliberately false for comedy purposes only, being a work of fiction, while all connections with reality are coincidental.

Moreover, the information that Ukrainian farmland was bought by foreigners, regardless of their country of origin, is equally false, as Ukrainian legislation prohibits foreign companies from buying farmland. The Ukrainian Land Code clearly stipulates that, apart from the state authorities, only citizens of Ukraine and Ukrainian legal entities whose associates are exclusively citizens of Ukraine are entitled to right of ownership over farmland. To avoid ambiguities, the law specifies that “foreigners and non-Ukrainian citizens are prohibited from acquiring shares in legal entities that own farmland”. The same land code also includes a provision for exceptional cases, which allows the purchase of agricultural land by Ukrainian legal entities whose associates are not citizens of Ukraine. Nevertheless, any such acquisitions require a referendum held in the community where the land is located.

The narrative that Ukraine was sold to the American company BlackRock, often used by Russian officials, but also by some European politicians, is also false. It is based on the financial giant's initiative to launch a development fund, jointly with the Government in Kyiv, to attract capital for the reconstruction of Ukraine. The purpose of the fund is to find investors who will finance the development of various sectors of Ukraine, including infrastructure, the manufacturing and energy sectors.

Blackrock, the new face of the global cabal

BACKGROUND: Ever since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, with the invasion of Crimea in 2014, Russian propaganda started to periodically spread disinformation narratives regarding the actions of Kyiv authorities, who either sold Ukraine to the West or surrendered all decision-making power. The narratives are designed to justify Russia’s acts of aggression, which are allegedly merely aimed at installing a political regime in Kyiv that would benefit the population. The narratives aim, however, only to discredit the leadership of Ukraine and to demoralize the population, which is thus confronted with the particularly serious problems caused by the war.

BlackRock, Inc. is an American investment fund, established in 1988. As of December 31, 2023, BlackRock was the largest asset manager in the world, managing over 10 trillion USD worth of assets. For this reason, the company is considered one of the main instruments of the global financial cabal, which aims to enslave and/or exterminate the population of the planet. This secret organization is often associated with various events that reveal “the truth about the plot of the satanic elites”. More recently, several conservative sources indicated BlackRock was behind the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The information was “reinforced” by a crudely faked photo, depicting a young Larry Fink holding a rifle, alongside Thomas Crooks (the author of the attack), exiting the New York subway together.

The website that published the article promotes a mix of anti-Western, xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic articles, as well as anti-abortion or anti-LGBTQ religious content. Currently, the site has been banned on several social networks, although it remains active on the Russian networks Vkontakte and Telegram. Over the years, the website promoted several false narratives, which Veridica has disproved.

PURPOSE: To promote anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian discourse, to stir and amplify social unrest.