Easter holidays were not canceled either in Kyiv nor anywhere else in Ukraine. It will be possible to attend a services before 12 midnight or after 5 am. Those who decide to stay for the night service, will not be able to leave the churches until the end of the curfew.
Did Ukrainians really set a Russian Orthodox church on fire? A video purporting to show just that has been circulating online since April 5, 2023. However, it turns out that this video was filmed in Russia more than ten years ago and shows an accidental fire.
In Ukraine, fake news continues to fuel the information war. In recent days, a video purporting to show a Ukrainian Orthodox church on fire has appeared on social media, with captions accusing "radical Ukrainians" of arson. The claims fit neatly into a Russian narrative that accuses Ukrainians of persecuting followers of the Moscow Patriarchate wing of the Church. But as we explain in this edition, the video is bogus.
Russian media are circulating a video purporting to show the torching of an
Orthodox Church belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate in the Mykolaiv region
by Ukrainian "radicals". The video was actually taken in Russia ten years
ago, in 2013.
An air raid alert signaling an enemy drone detected near Kyiv sounded, and the drone was subsequently shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
Verdict: False
The image is digitally fabricated. There is no evidence that Charlie Hebdo published this cover.
None of this is true. The video is a work of fiction and the people in it are actors. The video is related to war in Chechnya, but only because it's a clip from The Search (2014), a war drama written and directed by French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius. The Search is fiction, though set in a real war. But it's worth pointing out that right at the beginning it specifically identifies the men who kill the man and woman as Russian soldiers.
And the caption's claim that "Ukrainian Nazis once upon a time invaded Chechnya" is incorrect.