Epstein Conspiracy Posts Hit Millions of Views as Russia Bombs Maternity Hospital in Zaporizhzhia
Within hours of the DOJ releasing 3 million Epstein files, conspiracy theories linking Epstein to Ukraine and Zelensky flooded social media with millions of views. A Russian drone strike on a maternity hospital the same day received a fraction of the attention.
A coordinated wave of conspiracy theories linking Jeffrey Epstein to Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky flooded social media within hours of the DOJ releasing 3 million pages of Epstein files on January 30, 2026. The posts, which attracted millions of views, coincided with a Russian drone strike on a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia that injured six people -- a war crime that received a fraction of the online attention.
What the Files Actually Say
The DOJ released over 3.5 million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The agency explicitly warned that release of a document "does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual."
Among the files was an email exchange between Epstein and Ariane de Rothschild, a Swiss businesswoman, that referenced "upheaval" in Ukraine following the 2014 Maidan revolution and discussed "opportunities."
Within hours, accounts on X reframed the email. The word "upheaval" became "coup." A private financial discussion became evidence of an elite plot to control Ukraine. The top post, by @Megatron_ron, attracted 1.8 million views and over 34,000 likes by presenting the emails as proof that Epstein and "the Rothschild family" orchestrated events in Ukraine.
According to CNBC, the only clear Ukraine reference in the files was film producer Steve Tisch asking Epstein about a "Ukrainian Girl" for a lunch meeting. No connection to Zelensky or the Ukrainian government was found.
The Conspiracy Cluster
Four major conspiracy posts dropped within a two-hour window on January 31, between 10:05 PM and 11:52 PM, according to timestamps on the posts. The pattern suggested coordinated amplification rather than organic discussion.
@AdameMedia posted what it called a "BREAKING" thread claiming "EPSTEIN INVOLVED IN UKRAINE, ZELENSKYY ON THE LIST," compiling several unverified claims into a single narrative. The post received 208,000 views. @Alex_Oloyede2 posted that "Jeffrey Epstein was in Ukraine a month before Zelensky won the elections" with the caption "It's all making sense now," gathering over 13,000 engagements.
One post went further. An account called @tovarisch_eric6 claimed the Epstein files confirmed that "Putin didn't kidnap children from Ukraine" but instead "evacuated them to protect them from being sold into child sex trafficking." That post reached 3 million views and 95,000 likes, directly contradicting the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Putin on charges of unlawful deportation of children.
Russia's own diplomatic apparatus amplified the narrative. Russia's envoy Dmitriev used X to frame the Epstein-Ukraine emails as evidence of a "satanist cabal" exploiting Ukraine, according to Anadolu Agency.
The Story That Got Buried
On February 1, while Epstein-Ukraine conspiracy posts continued to circulate, a Russian drone struck a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia.
Six people were injured, according to Kyiv Independent. The strike came on the same day that 16 miners were killed by a Russian strike on a bus in Dnipropetrovsk, and on the day a ceasefire on Ukrainian cities announced by US President Trump was set to expire.
Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko's post about the maternity hospital received 300,000 views and 17,000 likes. Former Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko's post about the attack received 24,000 views. The Center for Countering Disinformation's update on casualties received 22,000 views.
The engagement gap is stark. The top conspiracy post outperformed the top humanitarian post by roughly 6 to 1 in views.
A Pattern Europe Knows Well
The Epstein-Ukraine narrative is not an isolated incident. It follows a documented pattern of viral anti-Ukraine disinformation campaigns that spike at strategically convenient moments for Moscow.
According to the Atlantic Council, Russia has systematically expanded its global information war against Ukraine since 2022. The EU's own disinformation monitoring service has tracked false stories about Ukrainian children and aid corruption as recurring themes. EUvsDisinfo reported that Russia's 2026 budget shifted funding from defense to propaganda, signaling a strategic pivot toward information warfare.
The Epstein files have also been weaponized against European political figures, with revelations about connections between Steve Bannon and Marine Le Pen's circle emerging from the same document release.
This is where the current EU falls short. Twenty-seven member states running twenty-seven separate media literacy programs and counter-disinformation efforts is no match for a centralized Russian information machine. A federal European approach to information defense, with a unified rapid-response capability and shared intelligence infrastructure, would allow Europe to identify coordinated campaigns in real time and respond at scale. The patchwork approach to platform regulation only makes the problem worse.
What Comes Next
The DOJ's Epstein file release is complete. The conspiracy narratives built on selective readings of those files are not. As NPR reported, fake documents were found mixed into the release, and new claims will likely continue to surface.
Meanwhile, Russia's war against Ukraine continues. The Zaporizhzhia maternity hospital was not the first to be hit. In March 2022, Russian forces bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol. The pattern of targeting medical facilities, and the pattern of drowning out reporting on those attacks with unrelated conspiracy content, both show no signs of stopping.
February 2, 2026