Fake: Moscow Patriarchate Priests Kicked Out of Zelensky’s Office by a False Alarm
An air raid alert signaling an enemy drone detected near Kyiv sounded, and the drone was subsequently shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
Category War crimes
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Fake: Kyiv Sending Children To War – video
StopFake located the video being circulated in Russian media claiming to show children being sent to the front. The video turned out to be of an adult Ukrainian National guard serviceman.
No, these videos do not prove the Ukrainian army is using chemical weapons – Truth or Fake
Videos purporting to show the Ukrainian army making or using chemical weapons keep surfacing on pro-Russian accounts. We debunk two of them in this edition of Truth or Fake.
A year of disinformation around the war in Ukraine
The war in Ukraine has been accompanied by a ferocious battle of disinformation, waged in particular by pro-Russian agitators seeking to distort and shift the blame for many atrocities on the ground. They have sought to depict the Ukrainian side as Nazis or suggest that Western support for Kyiv is evaporating. Here are some of the main narratives, false or misleading, that have been fact-checked over the past year by AFP's digital verification teams.
How one year of disinformation has shaped the narrative of the Ukraine war online
On February 24, 2022, Russia began a full-scale invasion into Ukraine, triggering a war on the ground, but also an information war online. Since then, the FRANCE 24 Observers team has debunked 115 pieces of misinformation that have been shared in photos or videos online. But what are the main themes in these false narratives? And what techniques are used to misinform? Here's a look back at this year in fake news.
Fake: Ukrainians Calling Russian Children in Gas Hoax
An audio recording is being circulated online as "evidence" of Ukrainian
"sabotage", however the recording first surfaced online at least in 2018
when it was widely circulated in Kazakhstan.
Fake: Draft Notices Handed Out to Minors in Ukraine
The document being circulated online purported to be a Ukrainian draft notice is a fake. This document does not bear any similarity to an official Ukrainian draft notice, it contains the wrong category names and does not contain pertinent information that is part of a genuine draft notice. The term military commissariat is repeatedly used in the fake document. However, as of 2021 Ukrainian enlistment centers are called Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centers. An analysis of the seal used in the document in question also shows that it was doctored and is not the seal of the Bila Tserkva Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Center.
Fake: Humanitarian Agencies Killed Civilians and Looted in Soledar
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.
Does this video really show children on the front lines of the war in Ukraine?
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.
Debunking claims that Ukraine is using child soldiers – Truth or Fake
The latest pro-Russian narrative in the war in Ukraine is that the Ukrainian army is sending children and teenagers to the frontline. To illustrate this claim, users are posting a video on Twitter that shows three young soldiers, claiming they are children. Our team were able to identify two of the three soldiers in the video. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.