Does a video show the "son of a famous Ukrainian prosecutor" who "was spotted in Monaco enjoying his car" during the Russian-Ukrainian war in January 2025? No, that's not true: Lead Stories analysis showed that neither the date, place or identity of the person matched the clip's description. The video was recorded in Florida in 2023 and showed a Ukrainian entrepreneur who became known on TikTok for recording ironic videos reusing a meme soundtrack.

The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on January 13, 2025. It said:

While Ukranian men are dying, the son of a famous Ukrainian prosecutor was spotted in Monaco enjoying his car. 'Slava Ukraini'
The post shared a video with an add-on banner that said:
'Monaco' battalion.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
Screenshot 2025-01-15 at 10.11.33 AM.png
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Jan 15 15:11:33 2025 UTC)

The video

The same video and claim has been circulating online at least since September 14, 2023 (archived here), when it was published in a Russian-language Telegram account of a Russian TV host described as "the most energetic Kremlin propagandist" (archived here) by the U.S. Department of State on March 31, 2022.

The original footage was posted on September 6, 2023, (archived here) on TikTok by the account named @tolanshinkarev (archived here).

As geolocated by Lead Stories, the footage was recorded roughly at this spot (archived here) in Hallandale Beach, Broward County, Florida. The composite image below shows some of the unique matching identifiers, including (1) the position and color of the blue highway overpass, (2) the location of the green elements on the building in the background whose location matches the video and (3) the windows making a semi-spherical shape on the right side of another high-rise whose entrance we see in the clip in question.

Screenshot 2025-01-15 at 12.23.51 PM.png
(Sources: TikTok screenshots taken on Wed Jan 15 between 16:09:24 and 16:30:53  2025 UTC; Google Maps screenshot taken on Wed Jan 15 16:55:16 2025 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)

The man

Anatoly Shinkarev, who posted the video, is an entrepreneur from Ukraine who appears to be based overseas as of this writing. In 2023, he was described by Ukrainian media organizations as a founder of a blockchain company (archived here) and a "philanthropist and patriotic IT revolutionary" (archived here). A LinkedIn profile (archived here) matching his photo and current employment listed his location as Dubai.
A search for keywords in Ukrainian (archived here), Russian (archived here) and English (archived here) across Google News did not produce any articles confirming that the man has any family connections with Ukrainian prosecutors.

The audio

The original video's voice-over that discussed "'Monaco' battalion" and a "famous Ukrainian prosecutor's son" was not recorded simultaneously with the footage -- it was a reused audio trending on TikTok (archived here).

Shinkarev posted videos with the same voice-over more than once as seen, for example, here (archived here) and here.

The "Monaco battalion" is a term that originated from an investigation published by the Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda (archived here). It collectively refers to a social group of well-connected and well-off offsprings of Ukrainian politicians and high-profile business owners enjoying luxury lifestyles abroad.

A search for Shinkarev's name across the website of Ukrainska Pravda (archived here) produced several articles mentioning him but none of them described him as a "prosecutor's son."

Lead Stories contacted Shinkarev for additional comments but did not receive an immediate response.

Read more

In the past, Lead Stories has debunked other similar claims about the purported luxury purchases made by Ukrainian officials during wartime. Those fact checks can be found here. Stories about claims related to the Russian-Ukrainian war are here.