It is Russia and President Putin who are clearly responsible for the war in Ukraine. It was Putin's personal decision to invade Ukraine and start the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII.
The Verdict: False.
There is no evidence that the people of eastern Ukraine were subject to systematic extermination. [...]
The claim was spread widely after [Russian Foreign Affairs official] Maria Zakharova [...] stated in February 2022 that there was a "systematic extermination of the Donbas population." However, an OSCE monitoring mission active in Ukraine since 2014 has found no evidence of mass targeted killings of civilians in the Donbas region. The Russian Foreign Ministry has not provided any proof to back up Zakharova's claim.
The video was edited. This phrase was assembled from several different answers of Budanov. In an interview for the documentary film "Year" by journalist Dmytro Komarov, published on May 19, 2023, Kyrylo Budanov revealed his plans to travel to Sevastopol after victory. However, he added that the process of reintegrating Ukrainian territories would be lengthy.
Miscaptioned.
Context: The video being shared was posted on YouTube around 10 years ago and is reportedly of a church being burned in Russia.
This story was fabricated. It appeared on Real Raw News, a site that regularly publishes false, fantastical stories authored by someone using a pseudonym.
Real Raw News stories are authored by someone using a pseudonym and the site has a disclaimer saying it contains "humor, parody and satire," though the author has defended his stories as truth.
We found no credible news reports or other sources to corroborate the claims in this post.
QAnon promotes a number of conspiracy theories that invoke pedophilia and a Democratic cabal. QAnon adherents were present during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These ideas also infiltrated political discourse as recently as the 2022 midterm elections.
We rate this claim Pants on Fire!
A recent article in the American conservative online magazine The Federalist is made up of a series of manipulative theses that in their totality eventually compose a propaganda narrative about civil war in Ukraine. According to a May 2022 opinion poll conducted by the respected Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on the perceptions of the Russia-Ukraine war among Ukrainian citizens, only 1% of Ukrainians were found to have a "predominantly pro-Russian position". Another May 2022 survey also conducted by KIIS showed that only 2% of Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards Russia, while an overwhelming 92% have a negative attitude.
Several pro-Russian accounts have been circulating photos that they say show how Ukrainians put anti-Russian stickers in different places in Auschwitz, the former death camp run by the Nazis. The stickers say: "Russia & Russians - The only gas you and your country deserve is Zyklon B", a reference to the toxic gas used by Nazis to kill prisoners in the on-site gas chambers.
Ukraine has not banned the use of the Russian language in the country.
A 2019 law established Ukrainian as the official language of Ukraine and strengthened its use in businesses, schools and the media.
Our ruling
Lavrov referenced the banning and prohibition of Russian in Ukraine, particularly in "education, the media, everyday contacts," during a press conference.
Despite a language law that establishes Ukrainian as the country's official language and prioritizes its use in civil society, Russian has not been banned.
We rate Lavrov's statement False.
Russia has leaned on claims that Ukraine has killed Russian speakers in the country and that Russians are the targets of genocide there, but there's no evidence to support that.
Ukraine appealed to the U.N.'s International Court of Justice in the Hague to rule on the Russian government's claims of genocide "in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine," calling them false. The court ruled 13-2 on March 16 that the Kremlin's justification for the war was unjustified and ordered Russia to stop its invasion. Judges from Russia and China were the two dissenting votes.
We rate this post False.
As it happens, official United Nations data suggests that the 14,000 casualty figure that Putin has used does not only refer to civilians. During Russia's 2014-2021 military operations against Ukraine, 14,500 people died in the Donbas war. Of that 14,000, 3,404 were civilians, 4,400 were Ukrainian servicemen and 6,500 were Russian militants. The figure Putin operates with, is the total number of casualties incurred in the Donbas war by both sides.