Russian media claims that humanitarian agencies killed civilians and looted in Soledar are based on one "interview" with an alleged Soledar resident, an interview which is not supported by any other evidence. The Donetsk Region police have not documented any criminal actions against residents involving international or Ukrainian volunteers.
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.
StopFake checked the photo using Google and Bing image searches, and found that the photo used to create this latest fake is of a tattoo studio in Russia. The original photo shows a tattoo parlor called "Tattooirograf," which is located in Biysk, in the Altai Republic of southern Russia. In addition to this low-quality photoshop, Russian media also made a mistake with their special offer, writing the word "акция" ("discount offer") in Russian instead of "акція", as it would be spelled in Ukrainian.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine this year kept our fact-checkers very busy. We wrote 92 articles debunking false claims about information related to the war. These ranged from claims the Bucha massacre was staged to false TV reports and accusations of Nazism among Ukrainians. To mark the end of the year, we made a list of some of our top fact-checks about Ukraine.
Claims that the first lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska went on a shopping spree during her visit to Paris this month are not supported by credible evidence.
They appear to stem from a single tweet posted by an unverified and low-engagement Twitter account, which provided scant details about the alleged purchases, simply citing an anonymous "source."
Additionally, the location of the U.S.-based account and its posting history raise significant doubts about the veracity of the claims.
A video that shows a military tank hurtling down the street has been viewed thousands of times in social media posts that claim it was filmed in Ukraine in January 2022, after Western leaders sounded the alarm over a potential Russian invasion. The posts are misleading; the footage was filmed in May 2014, when deadly clashes erupted between Ukrainian troops and separatists in the city of Mariupol.
There have been at least six fake covers of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo circulating online, especially on Russian Telegram channels, over the past six months. And Charlie Hebdo isn't the only magazine targeted- fake covers of numerous international media outlets have also been circulating online since the start of the war in Ukraine. The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to an independent Russian media outlet that investigated these fake covers being posted.
Did graffiti depicting the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a black hole "absorbing European money" really appear on the streets of a Paris suburb? That's what a photo that has been circulating on social media since November 29 seems to show. However, our team found no trace of this graffiti at the actual site. Our forensic analysis of the photo shows signs that it was digitally altered. We also consulted some street art experts, who pointed out some inconsistencies in the art.
Has the entire Ukrainian territory been plunged into darkness due to Russian bombing? That's what some people on social networks have been saying since November 23, while sharing what appears to be an aerial photograph of Europe. While millions of Ukrainians have indeed lost power, this image has been manipulated using a photo that dates back to 2012.