No, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not buy a ranch larger than Rhode Island in Wyoming, making himself the 10th largest landowner in the United States.
The false rumor was started Monday in a sketchy post by @Its_The_Dr on X (formerly Twitter).
The post, which has since been removed, claimed that a company called Davegra Limited, which has been linked to Zelenskyy in the past, bought the Pathfinder Ranches for $79 million, adding that the “ranch is so massive, it bumped Zelensky into the top 10 U.S. landowners.”
It is true that Pathfinder Ranches is a massive ranch. It is larger than the state of Rhode Island, and bigger than New York City and Los Angeles combined.
It’s also true that a sale is pending.
But according to the selling agent Swan Land Co., the buyer is American. Not only that, but the buyer is an American cattle rancher.
“Swan Land Company, the brokerage who listed Wyoming’s Pathfinder Ranches for sale in August 2025, refutes online claims that Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has purchased the property,” according to a statement from the company emailed to Cowboy State Daily.
“The ranch is currently pending sale to a family-owned American ranching company with intentions to continue the cattle ranching legacy that the property is known for.”
Be Wary Of Fake URLs
Swan Land Company’s statement goes on to say that more information will be released about the sale in the future after the deal has closed.
It also advises people to carefully doublecheck domain names to spot fake websites.
The latter refers to the fake post’s link to a cloned website that looked very much like the Swan Land Company’s, but the fake site’s URL ended in a “.us” instead of “.com.”
This is a common technique to fool people into thinking they are visiting a legitimate website. Sometimes, rather than changing the .com to some other dot ending, a few letters in the website name are changed, like zero for “O” or some other less obvious change.
Fraudsters, whether they’re after money or social media reactions, count on people not taking the time to notice tiny differences in a website’s address. Fake websites can sometimes come with malware as well, so extra care is warranted when clicking any links.
The other tiny grain of truth in the fake X post is Zelenskyy’s minor stake in Davegra.
That was revealed in 2021 as part of the Pandora Papers, leaked by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. But it’s not known if the Ukrainian president still has any stake in the company.
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.) 
Wyoming’s expansive Pathfinder Ranches comes in at nearly 1 million acres — bigger than Rhode Island. And it’s on the market for $79.5 million. (Courtesy Scott Williams, Swan Land Co.)
Opposition To Foreign-Owned Land
While the rumor proved false, the news that Zelenskyy might own such a large part of Wyoming did spark renewed concerns that have been brewing for some time when it comes to foreign entities owning agricultural land in Wyoming.
“This is deeply concerning and needs to be investigated,” Secretary of State Chuck Gray told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday morning. “This is why foreign land purchases must be banned.”
Gray said other states like Arkansas have already banned foreign ownership of agricultural land over security and economic issues.
“Foreign land ownership schemes are a threat to the security and economy of the United States and Wyoming,” Gray said. “America needs to be able to feed itself for us to truly be free. Foreign entities should not be controlling these processes — period.”
State Rep. Bill Allemand, R-Midwest, sponsored legislation in 2023 that would have banned Russia, China or other nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism from owning more than 1 acre in Wyoming.
The Zelenskyy purchase "is all fake news,” Allemand told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday. “But the only thing that would be worse is if Bill Gates would have been the buyer.”
Keeping Ag Alive In America
Natrona County said no deed has been recorded in the Pathfinder Ranches sale, confirming that the transaction is still pending.
Whoever has put an offer in on the ranch will be getting a 916,000-acre property that’s even larger than the fictional “Yellowstone” Dutton Ranch in Taylor Sheridan’s popular television series, which had a deliberately large, unbelievable acreage for the purposes of the storyline.
Pathfinder Ranches, however, exceeds that fictional number and is, in reality, one of the largest working cattle ranches in the Rocky Mountain West.
That the sale is pending to an American cattle rancher was heart-warming news to State Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, whose family owns an eight-generation cattle ranch sitting in the shadow of Devils Tower.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am that a ranching family has bought that and intends to use it to ranch,” he said. “That’s absolutely the best news possible. It’s just incredible to see the faith in agriculture and the people who want to go in — and of course that’s an unbelievable ranch that’s been held by investors for a number of years.
“So, it’s really fun to see an active ag family back in there and really concentrating on ag. It gives you faith that the ag world is alive and well.”
Keeping It Agricultural
Driskill is concerned about foreign-owned agriculture lands and doesn’t like to see it. But he believes it’s important to think through all the unintended consequences of legislation that seeks to restrict it.
“Any foreigner who wants to hide ownership, all you have to do is go form a corporation or an LLC where the front people are all Americans,” he said. “And then all of a sudden, voila, you have American ownership.”
Fixing that could stray into territory where Wyoming, which values its stricter privacy, has demonstrated in the past it doesn’t really want to go. Legislation that would have made more transparency around land ownership has been considered in the past, and failed.
Driskill agreed that particular care needs to be taken in any area where there are national security concerns. Land around military bases, for example, or land around critical infrastructure like utilities for water and power.
Outside of that, however, Driskill thinks being too strict about foreign ownership of agricultural land could push more land out of farming and ranching. That’s something he would not support.
“I’d rather stay American across the board,” he said. “But I’d rather someone had them (to ranch), rather than like, Las Vegas taking the water and drying the fields up.”
Las Vegas, Driskill said, has been buying up ranches to change their use from farming and ranching so it can conserve the water.
“As long as the viewshed and the landscape is protected, and they run it as a ranch, it’s stomachable,” he said. “It’s certainly not the first option. But I’d rather see that than wind or some type of development, even subdivision development.”
Agriculture is integral to America’s economy, Driskill added, as well as the health of its wildlife habitat.
“It’s just critical that (ranches) are not developed in a non-ag way and that they continue to operate as ag,” he said. “Agriculture supports such major parts of our rural economy, and every time you take one of these ranches out of ag, it hurts everything from the grocery store to the feed store to the car salesman to everything else.
“And if you really want a healthy environment, one where you see lots of wildlife and vibrant grasses and an ecosystem that’s thriving, the very best ones are well-managed ranches,” he added. “Not ranches that have had the livestock taken off them.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
