Satellite Images Disprove Kremlin’s Claims That Bucha Massacre Was ‘Staged’
Claim: Images depicting a massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha were "staged."
Rating: Not True
Category Ukraine
These images from Bucha do not show ‘fake corpses’ staged by the Ukrainian army
Images published on April 3 showed the bodies of more than a dozen civilians who had been killed in Bucha, a town near Kyiv that had been occupied by the Russian army. Some of the bodies had their hands tied and some were shot in the head. Since then, several Russian media outlets and pro-Russian social media accounts have published a video that claims to show evidence the corpses in this video were staged. The FRANCE 24 Observers team analysed its claims.
Russia pushes false crisis actor claims about video from Bucha, Ukraine
The Russian Ministry of Defense and other top Russian officials claimed that a video of a car driving through Ukraine showed two crisis actors playing the role of dead Ukrainians in a staged massacre. On Telegram and Twitter, they claimed that the video showed one person moving their arm, and another person seen in the car's mirror sitting up.
The video does not show a person raising an arm as the car drives by; it shows a mark floating across the car's windshield ' perhaps a drop of water or a speck of dirt.
The video does not show someone sitting up after the car drives by; it shows a stationary corpse through the lens of the car's passenger-side mirror, which has distorting effects.
Our ruling
The Russian Ministry of Defense said a video taken from a car driving through Bucha, Ukraine, shows a corpse "moving his arm," and then "in the rear view mirror the 'corpse' sits down."
Both claims misrepresent what the video in question shows.
The video shows a mark floating across the car's windshield ' perhaps a drop of water or a speck of dirt ' which Russia officials falsely portrayed as of a corpse "moving his arm."
Similarly, what Russian officials falsely claimed was a corpse sitting up was actually a dead person whose body appeared distorted due to the shape of the car's passenger-side mirror.
We rate this claim False.
Fake: US Calls Bucha Atrocities “Ukrainian Propaganda”
Jim Jatras cannot be called a useful idiot because he is seemingly an intelligent man with not an insignificant career behind him as a policy adviser and lobbyist. This former State Department employee is today a Russian propaganda mouthpiece, who along with other so-called "experts", appears constantly on RT and Sputnik. Jatras dutifully echoes Kremlin disinformation narratives, and he most certainly does not represent "the position of the United States" as Kremlin English language mouthpieces RT and Sputnik claim. The crimes that Russian troops committed in the towns and cities around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv have been documented not only by Ukrainian authorities, but also by international media and human rights organizations.
Posts share false ‘vaccination requirement’ claim about Ukraine war relief fund
Multiple social media posts shared online in March 2022 claimed that "only vaccinated Ukrainian citizens" were eligible for an emergency government payment to aid workers impacted by the Russian invasion. This is false; as of April 4, 2022, neither Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nor the ministry in charge of the scheme has said immunisation for Covid-19 or any other disease is a requirement to receive the benefit.
Video shows Gaza tower hit by Israeli strike in 2021, not Ukrainian defence ministry
Footage of a building collapsing after it was pummelled by missiles has been viewed thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows a Russian strike on the Ukrainian defence ministry. However, the video shows Israeli strikes on a tower in Gaza in May 2021.
Fake: Mass Civilian Casualties in Kyiv Region Staged
There is no doubt that Ukraine's peaceful civilian population was subjected to extreme violence and brutality by the Russian military. Numerous local residents' testimonies from Kyiv area towns that have been under Russian military occupation for a month confirm this. Some of them have already been documented by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch.
No, a Ukrainian plane didn’t hit a street sign while avoiding Russian radar
Social media users have been circulating two photos showing a Ukrainian airplane that they say smacked into a street sign because it was flying low to avoid Russian radar. In reality, this incident happened during a training exercise back in August 2020 and has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine.
Fake: One Third of Ukrainian Refugees Arriving in France Are African Migrants
According to the French Ministry of the Interior, as of March 31, the number of non-Europeans among the more than 26,000 Ukrainian refugees who arrived in France is less than 5%.
Footage has circulated online since 2010 in posts about US and Iraqi forces retaking Iraqi shrine
After Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine, a video was viewed millions of times in multiple Facebook posts that claimed it shows fighting between soldiers from the two countries. In fact, the video has circulated online since 2010. A visual analysis of the clip found it corresponds with a raid by American and Iraqi troops on a shrine in Iraq in 2004.