Category Disinformation

Social media posts featuring an image of a woman in military uniform claim she is Ukraine's first female fighter pilot and that she died during Russia's invasion. But the Ukrainian Defense Ministry says the photo shows a soldier who won a 2016 beauty contest organized by the military, and the country's first female combat pilot is now a politician.

Several images of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wearing camouflage, a bulletproof vest and a helmet have been shared on social media with claims that he was leading his soldiers on the battlefield as Russia invaded its eastern neighbour. However, the claim has been shared out of context: the photos were taken last year when Zelensky visited troops several times in the pro-Russian separatist region of Donbass in Ukraine.

A series of photos of children wearing military fatigues and brandishing weapons is circulating in multiple posts online which claim they are Ukrainian children training to fight after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. In fact, the pictures were taken in 2015 and 2017 at a youth paramilitary camp on the outskirts of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

As Russia pressed on with its invasion of Ukraine, a photo of a Russian flag being raised at a building in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, circulated in social media posts that claimed it had "fallen". However, the photo was shared in a misleading context; the original photo -- taken by Reuters news agency -- is from a pro-Russian protest in 2014. As of March 2, 2022, fighting was ongoing in Kharkiv after heavy shelling.