A doctored image of President Zelensky holding a shirt bearing a swastika has been spread by pro-Kremlin accounts. The real image was posted by Mr Zelensky to Instagram ahead of Euro 2020 in June.
A story that claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin bombed a villa in Ukraine owned by President Joe Biden is bogus. It was created by a misinformation website that regularly publishes made-up stories. We found no evidence that Biden has a villa in Ukraine.
Claims about nefarious biolabs in Ukraine ' some supposedly "U.S. owned" ' are also fabricated, and part of disinformation efforts by Russians.
It's unclear what the blog is talking about in its reference to "pedophile rings," but it claims that Putin is wiping out "child trafficking covens" in Ukraine, and we found no evidence that these exist.
Nearly two weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the flow of false or misleading information about the war hasn't let up and now there are some outlandish theories being shared online.
Some have begun to circulate claims the war is a hoax, a media fabrication, or has been exaggerated by the West in terms of its scale.
We've examined some of them.
Social media posts claim that three NATO countries will give 70 warplanes to Ukraine to aid the fight against invading Russian forces. This is misleading; while Kyiv said Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia would provide the aircraft, officials from all three countries denied that they would do so.
News reports, testimonies of citizens-turned-fighters, and a swift global response all fly in the face of baseless claims that Russia's war on Ukraine is "staged."
"There is little to refute directly, other than to note that thousands or millions of people would have to be in on any conspiracy to fake a war, and like the 9/11 attacks (which some people also deny) there is substantial video footage of attacks on Ukrainian cities, Russian invading forces, and throngs of refugees," Radnitz said.
Nevertheless, he added, "a true believer will persist in denying all that evidence, something that is easier to do when the conflict is geographically distant and they do not personally know anyone directly affected by it."
With a war raging, the world responding and both sides of the conflict experiencing its effects, the claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is "scripted and staged" holds no merit. We rate it Pants on Fire!
“Maria Zakharova's claim that Ukraine started this war is false. The Russian Federation illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sparking broad international condemnation. On February 21, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine from the north, northeast, and from the Crimean Peninsula in the south, initiating a full-scale interstate war between Russia and Ukraine”.
WHEN Russia invaded Ukraine last week, several disinformations were in circulation which prompted the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to swing into action.
Russian state media says the missile can destroy an area the size of Texas or France, not the world. We could not find more objective reports detailing the same destructive power.
"Individual warheads would strike distinct targets within a very limited ballistic 'footprint,' or many warheads from the same missile would strike the same target, increasing the likelihood of destroying that target completely," according to a 2021 report from EurAsian Times.
The weapon is believed to be able to evade missile defense systems and its deployment is expected around 2022, said a March 1 Congressional Research Service report.
We rate the claim that a Russian nuclear weapon dubbed Satan 2 is "capable of destroying everything breathing in the world" False.
No legal agreement prohibits NATO from expanding eastward.
Russians have argued that comments made by U.S. and other Western leaders during the negotiations over the reunification of Germany constituted a promise that NATO would not extend beyond then-East Germany. Those allegations have sparked decades of debate amongst those involved in the events, and scholars studying them.
Even scholars who say they believe western powers did offer the Soviet Union assurances about NATO expansion say Owens' claim is misleading.
Our ruling
Owens said, "NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward."
There is an ongoing historical debate over comments that Western leaders, including Baker, made during post-Cold War negotiations, and whether what they said amounted to assurances that NATO would refrain from welcoming in countries closer to modern-day Russia.
But NATO as an organization made no such pledge, and the formal agreement signed at the end of those negotiations said nothing about the alliance not expanding eastward.
We rate this claim Mostly False.
Despite multiple claims of a Ukrainian genocide against ethnic Russians, there is no evidence to support it.
International bodies that include Russian representatives report that civilian deaths have plummeted since 2014.
Russia's ambassador to the U.S. relied on misleading and outdated evidence to back the claim.
Our ruling
Putin said ethnic Russians in Ukraine face genocide.
His ambassador provided misleading evidence, and international observers found no activities to support the claim. Civilian deaths have plummeted to less than 1% of what they were in 2014.
We rate this False.
