As gruesome videos and photos of bodies emerge from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Kremlin-backed media are denouncing them as an elaborate hoax — a narrative that journalists in Ukraine have shown to be false.
Denouncing news as fake or spreading false reports to sow confusion and undermine its adversaries are tactics that Moscow has used for years and refined with the advent of social media in places like Syria.
A photo of a couple embracing while draped in both the Russian and Ukrainian flags has circulated online after Moscow's invasion of its pro-Western neighbour alongside a claim it shows "love during [the] war". The image -- which was shared repeatedly in posts linking it to the war in Ukraine -- has circulated in reports since 2019 about a couple embracing at a concert in Poland.
Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul never said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's circle is involved in "schemes" to supply weapons to Ukraine. The Russian publication alleging this took McFaul's words out of context and distorted his meaning entirely.
Lt. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier Jr., commander of NATO's Allied Land Command, has not been captured by Russian forces in Mariupol, the Allied Land Command confirmed.
Cloutier posted photos from a recent event in Turkey to his LinkedIn profile, where he disputed the internet rumors alleging that he had been captured.
A satellite image of Bucha in Ukraine appears to show bodies lying in the street nearly two weeks before the Russians left the town.
The image from 19 March, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the BBC, directly contradicts Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's claim that footage of bodies in Bucha, that has emerged in recent days, was "staged" after the Russians withdrew.
The images of civilians killed in Bucha have shocked the world. The Russian government and pro-Russian accounts claim they were staged and that some bodies were moving. Our DW fact check shows those claims are false.
According to NewsGuard - a media-tech firm that rates the credibility of news and information websites, misleading information about the war in Ukraine reaches users a few minutes after signing up on the app.
"TikTok is feeding false and misleading content about the war in Ukraine to users within 40 minutes of their signing up to the app, regardless of whether they run any searches on the platform," NewsGuard revealed.
Footage of a building collapsing after it was pummelled by missiles has been viewed thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows a Russian strike on the Ukrainian defence ministry. However, the video shows Israeli strikes on a tower in Gaza in May 2021.
Multiple social media posts shared online in March 2022 claimed that "only vaccinated Ukrainian citizens" were eligible for an emergency government payment to aid workers impacted by the Russian invasion. This is false; as of April 4, 2022, neither Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nor the ministry in charge of the scheme has said immunisation for Covid-19 or any other disease is a requirement to receive the benefit.
Jim Jatras cannot be called a useful idiot because he is seemingly an intelligent man with not an insignificant career behind him as a policy adviser and lobbyist. This former State Department employee is today a Russian propaganda mouthpiece, who along with other so-called "experts", appears constantly on RT and Sputnik. Jatras dutifully echoes Kremlin disinformation narratives, and he most certainly does not represent "the position of the United States" as Kremlin English language mouthpieces RT and Sputnik claim. The crimes that Russian troops committed in the towns and cities around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv have been documented not only by Ukrainian authorities, but also by international media and human rights organizations.