Two photos have been shared in social media posts alongside false claims that they show the aftermath of British cargo ships bombed by the Russian air force in a port in Odesa in southern Ukraine on July 16, 2023. However, the photos were in fact taken in Libya and Indonesia respectively and predate Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
An man posing as "Paul Kochadie" fooled over 400,000 followers on his Douyin account (TikTok's equivalent in China) by using artificial intelligence to pretend to be a Russian soldier on the Ukrainian frontline. This man, who sent "daily" updates about the war in Ukraine, was neither Russian nor a soldier, but instead a resident of Henan, China. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.
The lesson of the 20th century is that putting “America First” requires us to project strength and deter our enemies from launching wars of aggression — so that U.S. troops to don’t have to fight and die in another global conflagration. The invasion in Ukraine was a failure of deterrence. Only by helping Ukraine win can we prevent further deterrence failures.
If we help Ukraine prevail, we can rewrite the narrative of U.S. weakness; restore deterrence with China; strike a blow against the Sino-Russian alliance; decimate the Russian threat to Europe; increase burden-sharing with our allies; improve our military preparedness for other adversaries; stop a global nuclear arms race; dissuade other nuclear states from launching wars of aggression; and make World War III less likely.
The “America First” conclusion: Helping Ukraine is a supreme national interest.
A strange image has gone viral. Did Vladimir Putin really get down on one knee and kiss the hand of Xi Jinping? No. The picture, which was allegedly taken during the Chinese leader's recent trip to Russia, is fake.
Chinese social media users have repeatedly shared a doctored clip of Russian President Vladimir Putin giving a speech with false subtitles that claim he said he will not step down from power until "the problem in Ukraine is settled". However, the video contains clips taken from two different addresses and audio from one of the speeches. The Chinese and English language subtitles are false translations of the speech. As of February 17, 2023, AFP has found no official reports about Putin making such an announcement.
A video of a flock of birds swooping over a freeway in the US state of Texas has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in online posts that falsely claim it shows a murder of crows in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in January 2023. The claim circulated online during the 11th month of Russia's war in Ukraine.
A video that shows a military tank hurtling down the street has been viewed thousands of times in social media posts that claim it was filmed in Ukraine in January 2022, after Western leaders sounded the alarm over a potential Russian invasion. The posts are misleading; the footage was filmed in May 2014, when deadly clashes erupted between Ukrainian troops and separatists in the city of Mariupol.
False. As attested by a number of experts and published authors on modern Chinese history, the claim in Kim Dotcom's tweet that modern China has initiated zero conflicts is false.
The People's Republic of China has started a number of conflicts, trained revolutionaries, and contributed to other conflicts in Asia. It appears that the "no conflicts" claim was made by Xi Jinping in 2021.
A photo of several people wearing military uniforms with Chinese and Russian flags has been shared hundreds of times in social media posts that claim it shows Chinese soldiers joining the Russian army to fight in Ukraine. This is false. AFP traced the photo to the website of a military-themed amusement park in Russia. The photographer who took pictures of the event said the people in the photo were "tourists".
There are about 200 million people who use Twitter on a daily basis, making it an important site for news and information. But this social network is also a prime source of disinformation, from fake accounts to tweets taken out of context. The FRANCE 24 Observers team takes a look at some good habits to avoid falling into these Twitter traps.