From Assassins to Annexations: Hoaxes Multiply Ahead of Trump-Putin Summit
By Hope Talbot, Hilary Hersh, and Eva Maitland
What happened: Ahead of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, false claims are circulating from across the political spectrum and across the globe, as bad actors use the occasion of the meeting to push their respective agendas.
Context: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to meet on Aug. 15 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a U.S. military installation in Anchorage, to discuss the war in Ukraine. In the days leading up to the meeting, malign actors flooded the internet and social media with falsehoods and distortions.
The Phantom Assassin: On Aug. 12, 2025, conservative social media users claimed that U.S. soldiers shot and killed a Ukrainian assassin named “Stefan Orestovych,“ a supposed trained sniper who worked for Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces. The incident supposedly happened in Wasilla, Alaska, 30 miles northeast of Anchorage. Posts variously alleged that the intended target was Trump, Putin, or both.
An Aug. 12, 2025, Facebook post by Randall Hathcock, an Alabama native who posts conservative content to an audience of 11,000 followers, stated: “White Hats on Sunday killed a Ukrainian assassin in Wasilla, Alaska, five days before President Trump is scheduled to meet with Vladimir Putin at a currently undisclosed venue in The Last Frontier.”
The false claim circulated on X, Instagram, Substack, QAnon platform 8kun, video sharing platforms Bitchute and Rumble, and Sri Lankan news website SLGuardian.
Actually: The claim originated on Real Raw News, a self-described “humor, parody, and satire” website whose articles have frequently been treated as real news by other sites and social media users.
Real Raw News has published numerous articles with fabricated claims about top U.S. officials and politicians getting arrested and executed, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are no credible news reports that a Ukrainian assassin was killed in Wasilla, Alaska. Neither local nor federal authorities reported such an incident, and NewsGuard found no evidence that a Ukrainian assassin named “Stefan Orestovych” even exists.
In an Aug. 14, 2025, email, a spokesperson for the Wasilla Police Department told NewsGuard that it “has no record of the incident.”
The Phantom Decree: Meanwhile, Trump critics are falsely claiming that Putin signed a decree in January 2024 declaring Russia’s 1867 sale of Alaska to the United States illegal and mocking Trump for hosting a leader who supposedly rejects America’s ownership of the host state.
An Aug. 8, 2025, post from the anonymous account @Defence_Index, which purports to cover breaking news, stated, ”In 2024, Putin signed a decree calling the 1867 sale of Alaska to the U.S. ‘illegal’ — claiming it still belongs to Russia. Yet Trump wants to welcome him to Alaska. Why host a man who says your land isn’t yours?”
X user Michelle Rainer shared the false claim and stated, “Putin is preparing the future annexation of Alaska and Trump fell for it.” The false claim also spread on Bluesky, Reddit, and TikTok.
Actually: Putin did not sign a decree declaring that the sale of Alaska to the U.S. was illegal. He did sign a decree on Jan. 18, 2024, but it related to Russian-owned real estate outside of Russia and made no mention of Alaska.
In a Jan. 19, 2024, report, the U.S.-based think-tank Institute for the Study of War said that the decree provides Russia’s Foreign Property Management Enterprise and Ministry of Foreign Affairs with “power and funds to search for, register, and legally protect ‘property’,” but added that “the exact parameters of what constitutes current or historical Russian property are unclear.”
The Phantom Flag: Rounding out the fabrication trifecta, ultra-nationalist factions of Moscow’s propaganda apparatus are using the summit to revive the long-standing notion that Alaska is rightfully theirs.
Nationalist pro-Kremlin sources on X, Telegram, and Russian social networks LiveJournal and VK circulated an image of a fake “People’s Republic of Alaska” flag.
Tsargrad TV, a nationalist media outlet owned by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, shared the fictitious flag on Telegram and stated, “How do you like the new flag of Alaska?” An article from a website in the Moscow-based Pravda network of approximately 150 sites included the fake flag and stated, “Due to Putin’s visit to Alaska, a movement has begun to return Alaska to Russia.”
Zooming Out: The fake flag is the latest installment in a decades-old narrative pushed by ultra-nationalists in Russia, framing the Nineteenth Century sale of Alaska as a national betrayal.
An Aug.12, 2025, article from the Kyiv Independent noted that “Russian propagandists and officials had been obsessed with Alaska long before the planned Putin-Trump summit,” adding that ever since the 1867 sale, “Russian imperialists have mourned the loss of Alaska.”
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