In March 2022, Biden said the supply of tanks and other equipment with—crucially— American troops on the ground would amount to what he described as "World War 3".
While the arrival of M1-Abrams tanks to Ukraine is new, the U.S. has funded the upgrade and supply of Soviet-era tanks to Kyiv.
President Joe Biden announced on Jan. 25, 2023, that the U.S. is sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
Earlier in the war, almost a year ago, Biden said, "The idea that we're going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews, just understand … that's called 'World War III.'"
A widely shared meme shortened Biden's quote to make it appear as if he said sending tanks alone to Ukraine would cause World War III.
A meme shared in a tweet claimed that in March, Biden said, "The idea that we're going to send in tanks to Ukraine, that's called World War III." Biden announced the U.S. will be sending M1 Abrams tanks about 10 months later.
The quote is edited to leave out the full context of Biden's comments. He said the U.S. would not be sending offensive equipment and planes, tanks and trains with U.S. pilots and crews.
We rate the claim False.
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.
In a video circulating on social media, some users claim to show American M1 Abrams tanks and military infantry vehicles in Poland, allegedly heading to Ukraine. These false claims began to circulate online on January 25, when President Joe Biden announced that US Abrams tanks would be delivered to Ukraine. We tell you where this video was actually filmed in this edition of Truth or Fake.
A recent Russian fake cites a Newsweek article which allegedly claims that the US is colonizing Ukraine for its titanium reserves. The Newsweek article however does not contain a single word about any such colonization. On the contrary, the article claims that Russia could launch large scale military operations against Ukraine also with the aim of seizing the country's mineral deposits.
Congress has approved about $111 billion in aid to Ukraine since the country was invaded by Russia in February 2022.
During a 20-year entanglement in Afghanistan, the U.S. spent between $825 billion and $2.3 trillion, depending on the source of the estimate and what's being included.
Even taking the lower estimate of $825 billion, the U.S. would have spent $714 billion more in Afghanistan than in aid to Ukraine.
We rate the claim that the amount the U.S. has spent in Ukraine is "double the U.S. expenditure for its own war in Afghanistan" False.
A study by the US think tank CSIS states that the United States may face shortages of certain types of weapons and ammunition. However, this will not be a problem for the American Armed Forces. The United States possesses more than enough interchangeable types of weapons.
Is Ukraine sending children to fight on the front lines of the war? That's what some people on social media are claiming. As proof, they cite a video showing three very young-looking soldiers, which has been circulating online since November 8. It turns out, however, that we could identify two of the three people pictured in the footage and they are young adults - 23 and 25 years old. Furthermore, our team spoke to the NGO Amnesty International, which said that it had no knowledge of documented cases of child soldiers in the Ukrainian Army.
Verdict: Misleading
Ukraine did not kill 12 generals in a single day, though they claimed the deaths of several Russian officers in December 2022.
On the heels of Volodymyr Zelensky's December 21, 2022 trip to Washington, social media users are claiming an image shows US President Joe Biden placing his hand on the Ukrainian leader's buttocks. But the picture has been digitally manipulated; the original photo and other shots from the visit show Biden's hand on Zelensky's back, and a White House spokesperson confirmed the version circulating online is "doctored."