A draft law under parliamentary consideration which has not yet been voted on does not cancel existing national holidays, but simply establishes new public holidays. The draft introduces a Peace Day holiday on September 21, in order to celebrate peaceful life after Ukraine’s Victory over Russian military aggression. The May 9 Victory over Nazism day will remain a holiday, but will become a workday.

Russian media is disseminating fake stories claiming Ukraine is selling stale repackaged bread as the country is suffering from bread shortages. Bread manufacturer Kyivkhlib’s hotline reported that they do not produce the kinds of bread products described in these Russian stories. Russian propagandist claims that there is a bread shortage in Ukraine are also untrue. While experts predict an increase in bread prices throughout 2023, there are absolutely no bread shortages in Ukraine.

A U.S. Army combat team recently completed its European deployment as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, a series of military exercises in support of NATO. The brigade has returned to Fort Hood, Texas, and its equipment will follow. But social media posts falsely claim the equipment shown in a video is “arriving in Europe” to aid Ukraine.

Social media users are sharing a video that falsely claims Polish Leopard 2 tanks were captured while stuck in deep mud somewhere in Ukraine. But the misleading video has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.

[T]his picture predates the most recent Ukraine-Russia conflict by well over a decade, and depicts a mass burial site created during the First Chechnyan War. Several versions of the picture were published prior to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with the earliest example identified by Snopes dating back to at least 2006. The photograph appears to have been taken by Georgian photojournalist Shakh Aivazov, who worked for The Associated Press during several Russian wars. It is included in a gallery of the Georgian Museum of Photography attributed to him and labeled “Chechnya, 1996.” These pictures appear to match video and other photographs of a graveyard on the outskirts of the Chechnyan capital of Grozny during the first Chechnyan war.

This is not an ad for an actual dementia care facility. The phone number listed, if dialed from within Russia, would connect you to the emergency line of the United States Embassy in Moscow.

In a video circulating on social media, users claim that a waiter at an upscale French ski resort wearing a Russian flag jumpsuit carried a Ukrainian “coffin” during a champagne parade. The FRANCE 24 Observers team contacted Bagatelle Courchevel; the restaurant explained that the scene had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.

Social media posts shared thousands of times say Volodymyr Zelensky earns $11 million per month, has billions in assets, including a $35 million house in Florida, and numerous other trappings of a moneyed lifestyle. This is unproven; public records show Ukraine’s president does not own property in his name in the US state, financial disclosures and independent investigations indicate he is far from a billionaire, and none of the online claims include evidence of such significant wealth.

A residential tower in Kyiv that was hit by a missile soon after Russia launched its war against Ukraine has become a subject of misinformation. Social media users claim pictures, showing the building seemingly intact, prove the war that began more than a year ago is not real. But AFP found authentic evidence of extensive damage to the building, and the restoration that followed.

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.

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.

In his opinion piece for the British conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper, retired British Colonel Richard Kemp does not write that Ukraine “cannot seize Crimea.” On the contrary, Kemp emphasizes that “Russia’s complete collapse is surprisingly close,” Ukraine will be able to return the Crimean Peninsula which was annexed in 2014 and “achieve the complete collapse of Putin’s forces” with the full support of its partners.

Some prominent conservatives in the United States are sharing a video that appears to show Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates calling the Ukrainian government one of the worst in the world amid the war with Russia. This is misleading; the original footage shows the billionaire philanthropist was referring to Ukraine’s past, but the clip was deceptively edited to omit the word “pre-war” from the start of his sentence.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been the subject of numerous false rumors, particularly in the form of doctored or misleading photographs and video footage. From a manipulated deepfake video of Zelenskyy supposedly telling Ukrainian soldiers to surrender to Russia to false claims he displayed Nazi logos on his clothes, there is no shortage of examples.

Russian news sites and Russian social media accounts are disseminating fakes claiming that the bodies of more than 500 Ukrainian soldiers were found in a mine shaft at the Bogdanka coal mine in Poland. Bogdanka’s press office told StopFake such claims are completely fake, and there are no bodies anywhere on the coal mine’s territory. StopFake factcheckers have ascertained that these fake claims were originally published on an anonymous Telegram channel, which according to Ukraine’s Security Service, is used by Russian secret services to foment and incite anti-government sentiments in Ukraine.

A “document” purporting to be an order for the mobilization of Ukraine’s nuclear plant workers is being disseminated online. The document is a fake as evidenced by the many errors in the text of the letter. Furthermore, some of the “signers” of this “document” are no longer members of Ukraine’s parliament. Mobilization preparation and management is not the responsibility of Ukraine’s legislative body.

There are a number of misleading elements to this tweet. Firstly, the video is not a “confession” at all. It is footage from an interview with Russian state-funded broadcaster RT. […] The tweet did not provide the necessary context for readers to be able to judge the significance of the footage, which only contained the opinions of a retired state senator.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not say this. During a February press conference, Zelenskyy predicted that if Ukraine loses the war, Russia will then invade a country that’s a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member, forcing the U.S. to defend its allies. Ukraine borders four NATO member countries, but it is not part of the military alliance. Their ruling: Greene claimed that Zelenskyy said he wants America’s “sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine.” Zelenskyy did not say that. During a press conference, he predicted that if Ukraine loses the war, Russia will invade a NATO member country next. If that happens, Zelenskyy said, Americans would be required to “send their sons and daughters” to war because of NATO’s mutual defense treaty. He did not mention U.S. troops going to Ukraine. We rate this claim False.

A video clip of Ukraine’s president is going viral, with some on social media claiming Zelenskyy said the U.S. would send soldiers to fight in Ukraine. That’s false.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy predicted that if Russia’s invasion of his country is successful, it will invade nearby NATO countries, triggering a war involving the U.S. military. Some conservative commentators misleadingly claimed that he’d called upon the U.S. to “send their sons and daughters to war for Ukraine and potentially die.”