A Russian woman who shares a name with a relative of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is being harassed by pro-Kremlin media.
Zelenskyy's mother-in-law, who lives in Moscow, has known for a long time that she has the same name as the woman, according to the Russian media outlet Mediazona. It had not caused her any problems until recently.
On April 15, Kiyashko received a message from her neighbors showing her two men asking about her. They were journalists.
Kiyashko told Mediazona that the duo visited another Moscow apartment where she is officially registered but doesn't live.
Russian media reported on an investigation claiming to have uncovered properties in suburban Moscow belonging to the Zelenskyy family.
Zelenskyy may have broken Ukrainian law by not declaring the two Moscow properties during his presidential campaign, according to an article published on the website of the pro-Putin TV. The Moscow Times reported that other pro-Kremlin media outlets repeated the false claim.
The properties were owned by Kiyashko, who has no family in Ukraine or Zelenskyy. She told Mediazona that simple fact-checking could have distanced her from the Ukrainian president's mother-in-law.
She told Mediazona that the fact that her mother-in-law was born in 1953 doesn't confuse anyone. They probably know that I am not her and she is not me.
Kiyashko said that the false reports made her fearful that she might become entangled in a plan and be arrested in a case of mistaken identity.
Kiyashko said she was beginning to fear herself, even though she was a fearless person.
Last week, jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny accused Russian soldiers of killing a man in Ukraine because he had the same last name as him.
According to Navalny, a dead man was found next to a passport that identified him as Navalny.
He didn't know if this man was related to him or if he was an innocent person who was killed because of the shared name.
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