Russia's propaganda machine periodically disseminates fake French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo magazine covers, to buttress the disinformation narrative the Kremlin in currently pushing. Whatever Russian media and its acolytes claim, there is no Charlie Hebo cover dedicated to Ukrainian Fencer Olha Kharlan.
A French auction house representative told StopFake that a billboard
advertising the sale of Ukrainian icons from the Kyiv Monastery of the
Caves is fake, and no such an auction is planned. The Osenat website has no
auctions scheduled for October 1. Claims that the West is exporting and
selling Ukrainian artworks are Russian disinformation.
There is no evidence that any weapons provided to Ukraine by Western
partners were used during the recent protests in France.
A TikTok video shared thousands of times claims to show President Emmanuel Macron apologising to France's former African colonies and pledging reparations during a UN speech in New York in April 2023. But the claim is false: AFP Fact Check traced the footage of the address to a speech from last September and found that the original English translation was replaced with a fake voiceover. Macron did not discuss Africa but talked about the Russian-Ukrainian invasion.
Since May 21, a number of posts online have been claiming that an advertisement posted on the British jobs website Adzuna offers proof that Western countries are recruiting mercenaries in Africa and the Middle East to go and fight in Ukraine. However, we investigated and determined that this post isn't real.
Did graffiti depicting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a black hole "sucking up European money" really appear on the streets of a Paris suburb? What about graffiti showing the president as an insect or as excrement? According to images circulating online, graffiti like this has been popping up on the streets of several European cities. But in fact, none of them ever existed. We took a closer look to prove that they are fake.
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.
This week saw the release of a wide-ranging investigation into the lucrative disinformation industry, published by a media consortium led by the French NGO Forbidden Stories. At the centre of the story is a shadowy Israeli group nicknamed "Team Jorge" who claims it has influenced 33 elections worldwide with a potent combination of phone hacking and thousands of fake profiles. FRANCE 24's Technology Editor Peter O'Brien dives into the systems they use to wage disinformation "black ops".
Social media users have been circulating a video of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming that the footage shows him calling on NATO to launch preventive nuclear strikes against Russia. It turns out, however, that this footage isn't new - Zelensky made these statements back in October 2022. Moreover, the translation of his statement, originally in Ukrainian, leaves out some nuance.
Russian media and Telegram accounts have been sharing an edited anti-Ukraine poster, allegedly located in the middle of a Parisian metro station. Pro-Russian channels claims the poster shows French people telling Ukrainian refugees that they've overstayed their welcome. We debunk these claims in this edition of Truth or Fake.