No, Zelenskyy did not ban Truth Social in Ukraine

After President Donald Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "dictator" in a  Feb. 19 post on Trump’s Truth Social platform, social media posts claimed Zelenskyy retaliated. 

"Zelensky has reportedly blocked Truth Social in Ukraine," a Feb. 20 X post said. The post included a screengrab of a headline with the same wording along with a clip of Zelenskyy speaking and another screenshot of what looked like a Truth Social page with the message, "Truth Social is currently unavailable in your area." 

A Feb. 20 Threads post used the same Truth Social screenshot to make the same claim.

But Truth Social has never been officially available in Ukraine except to users who bypass restrictions, such as through virtual private networks, or VPNs.

The Threads post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

"Ukraine did not and could not block access because, unfortunately, the social network Truth Social has never made itself available to users in Ukraine," Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi wrote in a Feb. 20 X post. "We would appreciate it if the Truth Social would add Ukraine to their authorized region of operations."  

The platform was initially restricted to users in the United States and Canada. Access has spread worldwide, but there are still some restricted countries, including.  Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Belarus. The platform's operational focus is on the U.S. market and politics, and no official statements from Truth Social nor any credible reports suggest it was available in Ukraine at any point in time.

PolitiFact reached out to both Tykhyi and Truth Social for comment but received no response.

Featured Fact-check

Alex Jones

stated on March 11, 2025 in a podcast episode

Deceased InfoWars reporter Jamie White was on a “Ukrainian enemies hit list.”

The Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation attributed the start of this rumor to Russians attempting to sow anti-Ukrainian sentiment.

Multiple Russian state-owned media outlets proliferated the claim, including Sputnik and RIA Novosti. Russia Today, another state-funded broadcasting agency, issued what we detected to be the earliest report containing the claim. 

Zelenskyy responded to Trump’s claims by saying Trump lives in a "disinformation space."

We rate the claim that Zelenskyy "blocked Truth Social in Ukraine" False.