The French media La Montagne did not publish an article entitled "Sanctions against Russia led to a bedbug epidemic in Paris." Most likely, a screenshot of this publication was created in a photo editor. Mass appearances of bedbugs are not related to anti-Russian sanctions, but to the insects adapting to insecticides, climate change and people beginning to travel more in crowded transport.
The photo used by Russian propaganda to spread disinformation was edited in Photoshop. In fact, the image shows a rally in Israel in support of Ukraine that took place in the summer of 2022. In the original photo, the protester is holding a poster that reads "Russia is a terrorist state," and there is no poster with words about Israel in the background.
The Ukrainian Forces Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny, did not say anything of the sort. This video is a high-quality fake, a so-called deepfake, created using artificial intelligence.
There is no evidence, though, that this occurred. Check Your Fact did not find any credible news outlets reporting on the alleged billboard. Instead, multiple outlets, including fact-checking website Snopes, reported that the billboard was a viral fake.
A viral image shared on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, purports to show former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson giving a raised arm salute at a recent public event.
Verdict: False
The image is digitally altered. The image was originally shared to the platform by user @smak_media, who admitted it was photoshopped in a subsequent post.
The circulating brochures are fake. The organization Handbook Germany, on behalf of which this brochure was allegedly published, denied its existence. They also noted that such a fake was intended to offend Ukrainian citizens living in Germany, as well as to cause damage to the reputation of the organization.
The photo on the billboard is fake. Moreover, the picture used captures a traffic stop in Denmark's capital Copenhagen, and not in France. French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the Crimea platform on August 23, once again emphasized that France does not recognize Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territories.
The cross at issue in the viral video is neither a modern-era German Iron Cross nor the simple cross used as an indicator by the Ukrainian army. It is true that variants similar to the cross in the viral video had been used by the Nazis in World War II.
This type of cross has a specific history in Ukraine, however, that predated its use in Nazi Germany. A guerrilla warfare campaign carried out by the Ukrainian National Army against the Red Army and other forces from 1919 to 1920 is known as the First Winter Campaign. [...] A "steel cross," as it is sometimes described in Ukraine, was the symbol of that Winter Campaign - the military award given for participation in these campaigns contained that equidistant cross.
In 2019, a Ukrainian military unit that has been fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine since 2014 - the 28th Mechanized Infantry Brigade - was renamed "Knights of the First Winter Campaign." That Brigade's insignia, approved by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, presently contains this same cross. [...]
While one could debate the merits of using a symbol that has since become complicated by its use in other contexts, there is no reason to interpret such cross's use in Ukraine as a reference to Nazism.
A post shared on social media purportedly shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dancing.
Verdict: False
The claim is inaccurate. The video is not of Zelenskyy.
