A video clip of Ukraine's president is going viral, with some on social media claiming Zelenskyy said the U.S. would send soldiers to fight in Ukraine. That's false.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not say this. During a February press conference, Zelenskyy predicted that if Ukraine loses the war, Russia will then invade a country that's a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member, forcing the U.S. to defend its allies.
Ukraine borders four NATO member countries, but it is not part of the military alliance.
Their ruling:
Greene claimed that Zelenskyy said he wants America's "sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine."
Zelenskyy did not say that.
During a press conference, he predicted that if Ukraine loses the war, Russia will invade a NATO member country next. If that happens, Zelenskyy said, Americans would be required to "send their sons and daughters" to war because of NATO's mutual defense treaty.
He did not mention U.S. troops going to Ukraine.
We rate this claim False.
There are a number of misleading elements to this tweet. Firstly, the video is not a "confession" at all. It is footage from an interview with Russian state-funded broadcaster RT. [...]
The tweet did not provide the necessary context for readers to be able to judge the significance of the footage, which only contained the opinions of a retired state senator.
Conservative influencers in the United States are claiming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said America's "sons and daughters" will be obligated to fight and die for his country. This is misleading; Zelensky's full remarks show he was saying Russia might invade a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country if Ukraine loses the war, implicating the alliance's members in a larger conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy predicted that if Russia’s invasion of his country is successful, it will invade nearby NATO countries, triggering a war involving the U.S. military. Some conservative commentators misleadingly claimed that he’d called upon the U.S. to “send their sons and daughters to war for Ukraine and potentially die.”
CLAIM: A video clip shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that Americans will have to send their "sons and daughters" to the war in Ukraine.
AP'S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. Zelenskyy was explaining that if Russia attacked NATO member states, which are U.S. allies, the U.S would likely send troops to protect those countries. He was not suggesting Americans would have to fight in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy did not declare that the U.S. "will" definitively send soldiers to fight in or die for Ukraine's war as numerous posts claim. His words were taken entirely out of context and misrepresented. [H]e was talking about a hypothetical situation in which if Ukraine loses the war against Russia, that would lead to a broader conflict resulting in Americans being pulled into fighting.
Social media posts claim a man pictured trailing Volodymyr Zelensky during US President Joe Biden's surprise trip to Kyiv was the Ukrainian leader's secret body double or clone. This is false; other footage of the same moments shows the man is Maksym Donets, Zelensky's bodyguard since 2019.
According to Ukraine's Air Force, the air raid alert that sounded during
the US President Joe Biden's visit to Kyiv was due to the take-off of in
Belarus of MiG-31K aircraft carrying Russian Kinzhal missiles. The maximum
range of such missiles is more than 2,000 kilometers, which is why air
raids sirens are sounded throughout the country every time Russian planes
carrying those missiles take off.
Employees of the US consulate in Milan never published a Twitter post with
the flags of Ukraine and Nazi Germany. The consulate's Twitter account was
hacked. After regaining control over the account, the hacked post was
deleted.