A demonstrably made-up story of British military officers being "captured" during a Russian raid in Ukraine has spread online this week, even being repeated by former British lawmakers. DW takes a look.
The narrative is riddled with distortions and falsehoods: none of the cited artifacts belong to the Ukrainian state.
There is no evidence online of the existence of such a lot. Moreover, the photo was shared only by Russian resources.
In reality, the visa center, which helps to obtain visas to the UK, has long since moved to another address. As a result of the Russian shelling, the building where it is currently located was not damaged, and it continues to operate. This visa center is a commercial structure and is formally in no way connected with the British government.
WHAT WAS CLAIMED: A BBC report reveals a Russian missile victim who met Prince Harry is a fraud.
OUR VERDICT: False. The BBC report is fake and the boy is a genuine victim of a Russian missile attack.
The story by the British tabloid The Sun on this topic is fabricated, and the comment by a royal expert in it is taken from an old video on a completely different topic.
A video of NATO troops and armoured vehicles in Estonia in February is not evidence of a recent military escalation with Russia, as has been suggested online.
VERDICT: Miscaptioned. The video shows NATO troops in Tallinn on February 24, 2025, for Estonia's Independence Day, according to NATO and British officials. Photos posted online in 2024 suggest the three armoured vehicles in the video were in Estonia long before February.
The 100-year partnership agreement between Ukraine and the UK was never "secret". The text of this document is easily available in open sources. Moreover, there is nothing in it that contradicts the agreement between Ukraine and the US on rare earth metals. Additionally, it was the US and the Trump administration, not Ukraine, that initiated the signing of the bilateral metals agreement - several weeks after the deal between Kyiv and London. Thus, neither Ukraine nor Zelenskyy "deceived" America; rather, the United States itself proposed such a deal and its terms to Ukraine.
Verdict: False.
The image has been photoshopped.
Verdict: False.
There is no evidence that this outlet reported this. There is no evidence that 70,000 Ukrainian troops died in the Kursk offensive.