In a video circulating on social media, users claim that a waiter at an upscale French ski resort wearing a Russian flag jumpsuit carried a Ukrainian "coffin" during a champagne parade. The FRANCE 24 Observers team contacted Bagatelle Courchevel; the restaurant explained that the scene had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Social media posts shared thousands of times say Volodymyr Zelensky earns $11 million per month, has billions in assets, including a $35 million house in Florida, and numerous other trappings of a moneyed lifestyle. This is unproven; public records show Ukraine's president does not own property in his name in the US state, financial disclosures and independent investigations indicate he is far from a billionaire, and none of the online claims include evidence of such significant wealth.
A residential tower in Kyiv that was hit by a missile soon after Russia launched its war against Ukraine has become a subject of misinformation. Social media users claim pictures, showing the building seemingly intact, prove the war that began more than a year ago is not real. But AFP found authentic evidence of extensive damage to the building, and the restoration that followed.
StopFake located the video being circulated in Russian media claiming to show children being sent to the front. The video turned out to be of an adult Ukrainian National guard serviceman.
Videos purporting to show the Ukrainian army making or using chemical weapons keep surfacing on pro-Russian accounts. We debunk two of them in this edition of Truth or Fake.
In his opinion piece for the British conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper, retired British Colonel Richard Kemp does not write that
Ukraine "cannot seize Crimea." On the contrary, Kemp emphasizes that
"Russia's complete collapse is surprisingly close," Ukraine will be able to
return the Crimean Peninsula which was annexed in 2014 and "achieve the
complete collapse of Putin's forces" with the full support of its partners.
Some prominent conservatives in the United States are sharing a video that appears to show Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates calling the Ukrainian government one of the worst in the world amid the war with Russia. This is misleading; the original footage shows the billionaire philanthropist was referring to Ukraine's past, but the clip was deceptively edited to omit the word "pre-war" from the start of his sentence.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been the subject of numerous false rumors, particularly in the form of doctored or misleading photographs and video footage.
From a manipulated deepfake video of Zelenskyy supposedly telling Ukrainian soldiers to surrender to Russia to false claims he displayed Nazi logos on his clothes, there is no shortage of examples.
Russian news sites and Russian social media accounts are disseminating
fakes claiming that the bodies of more than 500 Ukrainian soldiers were
found in a mine shaft at the Bogdanka coal mine in Poland. Bogdanka's press
office told StopFake such claims are completely fake, and there are no
bodies anywhere on the coal mine's territory. StopFake factcheckers have
ascertained that these fake claims were originally published on an
anonymous Telegram channel, which according to Ukraine's Security Service,
is used by Russian secret services to foment and incite anti-government
sentiments in Ukraine.
A "document" purporting to be an order for the mobilization of Ukraine's
nuclear plant workers is being disseminated online. The document is a fake
as evidenced by the many errors in the text of the letter. Furthermore,
some of the "signers" of this "document" are no longer members of Ukraine's
parliament. Mobilization preparation and management is not the
responsibility of Ukraine's legislative body.