Did Alex Soros negotiate in Ukraine on behalf of the European Union? No, that's not true: He represented the Open Society Foundation, the global grantmaking network founded by billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros. Alex Soros was named the official successor in June 2023. Soros met with Ukrainian officials in rooms where EU flags were placed alongside Ukrainian flags to show Ukraine's willingness to be integrated into the EU.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by @jankasebestyen on November 13, 2023. It began (translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff):
The Soros family is negotiating under the EU flag. 'Great meeting with the members of the Ukrainian parliament.' And there is an EU flag. What are they negotiating about? On what basis? Who gave them a mandate? As far as I remember, the Europeans didn't give them one.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Nov 15 15:10:17 2023 UTC)
The account user shows photos of Soros and representatives of the Ukrainian parliament in a meeting room with the Ukrainian and EU flags.
Great meeting with members of the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukranian parliament). 🇺🇦🇪🇺 pic.twitter.com/2DagFEvURN
-- Alex Soros (@AlexanderSoros) November 8, 2023
The source of the photos is Alex Soros' X (formerly Twitter) feed. In this case, the two flags didn't represent the two negotiating partners: The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, decided to use the EU and the Ukrainian flags together in its building "as a symbol of Ukraine's desire to become a full member of the European family and to adopt the necessary European integration laws as soon as possible." In addition, Alex Soros met with the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, on November 7, 2023. There were no EU flags in the photos taken during that meeting.
According to the official website of Verkhovna Rada, "one of the central topics of our dialogue was strengthening Ukraine's democratic stability and increasing our country's readiness to join the European Union"; they discussed such issues as corruption and strengthening civil society.
The EU flag was used by the Verkhovna Rada next to Ukraine's at several diplomatic meetings. According to photos on its website, representatives of the Ukrainian parliament and the U.S. Congress met surrounded by U.S., Ukrainian and EU flags:
(Source: Verkhovna Rada)
