It's well known that foreign fighters have joined Ukrainian military units. However, claims are being made by Russian officials and media outlets of serving Nato troops on the ground in Ukraine. [...]
Russian media outlets haven't provided evidence of serving Nato personnel on the ground, only pointing to the presence of individual foreign fighters on the battlefield.
Global media outlets widely shared a video they attributed to Russian state energy company Gazprom in articles published on September 6, 2022. The video, which was circulated online by pro-Russian users, showed the company halting its flow of natural gas to Europe. However, our journalists investigated the origins of the video and discovered that it likely wasn't made by Gazprom.
The Russian ministry of defence has released a video claiming its forces have struck an "amphibious" Ukrainian vehicle near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. However, by geolocating the alleged target from the footage, we discovered it is in fact the remnants of a bridge built during World War II. We explain the details in this edition of Truth or Fake with Vedika Bahl.
Footage that appears to show Russian President Vladimir Putin behind bars has surfaced in social media posts claiming he was arrested on terrorism charges. However, the clip has been doctored to superimpose Putin's face onto that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who spent a decade in jail. The altered video was originally published to promote a documentary that accused Russian authorities of orchestrating a series of apartment block bombings in 1999.
In a video posted on Russian Telegram accounts, a man claims to have found a geography book for Ukrainian high school students in which the map of Ukraine has been cut in half, missing the areas occupied by Russian troops. But several clues in the video indicate that it is a fake, as confirmed to us by the book's publisher.
A strange video is spreading on Telegram and Twitter: Hospice residents in Germany are allegedly getting tattoos of Putin to take him to his death as "living voodoo dolls." The whole thing is a fake.
A claim that NATO has sent fighter jets to Ukraine to help the country fight invading Russian forces was shared by multiple social media posts in August 2022. The claim, however, is false. While there was a proposal in March to supply Ukraine with Soviet-era jets through a US air base, Washington rejected the idea over fears it could escalate the conflict. Separately, NATO's press office told AFP that the claim was "not accurate".
Verdict: False
There is no evidence of the purported claim on either the U.S. Department of Defenseâs website or SpaceXâs website. Musk has also never publicly mentioned any such joint project with the U.S. military.
Russia has lost as many as 25,000 soldiers in its invasion of Ukraine, with tens of thousands more injured, according to estimates from U.K. and U.S. officials.
Russia's economy will contract as much as 6% this year mostly because of international sanctions, the country's central bank predicted.
Thousands of educated professionals have fled the nation after the war began, according to news reports.
Our ruling
Putin stated that Russia has lost nothing since the country invaded neighboring Ukraine in February.
Russia has suffered many losses. As many as 25,000 Russian soldiers are estimated to have died. Indicators from within Russia show the Russian economy has been damaged by international sanctions resulting from the war. And experts say thousands of Russians from many professional backgrounds, including tech and academia, have fled the nation.
We rate Putin's claim False.
A video from a film production in Ukraine has been widely shared on social media. Pro-Kremlin users falsely claim the video is evidence that Ukraine is staging Russian atrocities. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.