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False rumours have gained traction online alleging that Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Olga Stefanishyna, stole several bottles of wine after a gunman opened fire and attempted to storm the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD).
The allegations targeting Stefanishyna snowballed after footage shared across social media racked up hundreds of thousands of views, accompanied by dubious claims.
The video in question shows a woman putting multiple wine bottles under her arm, in the aftermath of the attempted shooting at the Washington Hilton hotel on 25 April.
The room appears to be largely empty, following the cancellation of the dinner, which US President Donald Trump also attended.
However, the woman depicted in the video is not Olga Stefanishyna.
This can be verified by comparing the outfit Stefanishyna wore to the event with the one worn by the woman captured in the clip.
The woman seen leaving with the bottles was wearing a black slit dress under a black fur coat, while Stefanishyna wore a silver ruffled feather ensemble, which we can see in the before and after photos of the incident that she shared on her Facebook account.
Euronews’ fact-checking team, The Cube, was not able to independently verify the identity of the woman featured in the footage circulating across social media, but we can confirm that it is not Olga Stefanishyna.
The dinner had barely begun when Cole Tomas Allen — who was charged with the attempted assassination of Trump on Monday — raced past a security barricade close to the ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel, prompting a gunfire exchange with Secret Service agents providing security for the event.
While President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were evacuated from the ballroom along with their inner circle, journalists were forced to hide under tables as the room was locked down before their evacuation.
The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) organises the annual dinner for Washington’s press corps. According to their website, the dinner is the “main source of revenue” to finance their work, with “tickets sold to news organisations that have association members.”
Attendees paid for their tickets, with a meal and wine provided. This means that accusing the woman who did leave with wine bottles of theft is tenuous.
Some online users also linked the false claims concerning Stefanishyna to unrelated corruption allegations.
Stefanishyna is on trial over allegations that more than 2.5 million Ukrainian hryvnia in public funds were misappropriated between 2013 and 2014, when she served as unit head in the Ministry of Justice.
The case is being handled by Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities, including the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), alongside Ukraine’s Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).
Stefanishyna has consistently maintained her innocence and argues that any wrongdoing was a legacy from a previous political era.
This was the first time that Trump attended the WHCA annual dinner, having not attended during his first term, nor during the first week of his second term in office.
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