Russia’s propaganda machine periodically disseminates fake French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo magazine covers, to buttress the disinformation narrative the Kremlin in currently pushing. Whatever Russian media and its acolytes claim, there is no Charlie Hebo cover dedicated to Ukrainian Fencer Olha Kharlan.

Claim: A video that went viral in July 2023 authentically depicted an ad in Japan that read “Stop Zelenskyy, Stop War.” Rating: Fake Context: The video was posted in October 2020, before the Russian attack on Ukraine, and was digitally edited.

Pro-Kremlin media are actively spreading misinformation about the 37th US President Richard Nixon’s alleged prediction of war in Ukraine. Referring to Nixon’s declassified letter to the 42nd American President Bill Clinton, Russian media claim that Nixon predicted an “American” Revolution of Dignity and an “American” war in Ukraine.

Social media posts claim a video depicts Ukrainian soldiers surrendering to the Russian army. This is false; the clip shows a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Wagner mercenaries in late May 2023 near the city of Bakhmut.

Russian claims that Ukrainians would like a president like Vladimir Putin are false. After Russia’s occupation and annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of hostilities in Donbas in 2014, Putin’s standing among Ukrainians plummeted and reached a minimum after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This is not true. The disinformation was spread because of an interview with the head of Lviv Regional Territorial Center for Drafting and Social Support. In it, he stated that about 20% of conscripts, who must be recruited according to the Centre’s plan, come voluntarily. Total mobilization or forced drafting of 80% of men was never mentioned.

No evidence was provided to support the claim Johnson blocked a peace agreement, and the claim that Russia withdrew its forces from Kyiv due to an agreement with Zelensky is widely disputed by political and military experts. Newsweek has put each of the claims it investigated to RFK Jr.’s spokespeople via email. There has been no response as of the time of publication. Unless RFK Jr. can provide substantive proof to support some of his arguments, the claims the Democratic hopeful made on Fox News simply do not match the facts.

A video has gone viral on social media, with users claiming it shows proof that the destruction of a historic cathedral in Odesa on the night of July 22 to 23 was staged by Ukrainian authorities. They argue that a woman in the video picks up the debris with too much ease for it to be real. However, the woman is actually picking up a light material, most likely polystyrene, so this does not prove that the attack was staged.

A video appearing to show an explosion has circulated widely in social media posts that misleadingly claim it captured the moment the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine was destroyed in June 2023. The footage was in fact taken in 2022 when another explosion occurred at the dam during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While footage and claims from Wagner should be treated cautiously, it stands to reason that had the video depicted a mass surrender, then Prigozhin or his representatives would have heralded that fact and not a prisoner exchange. In short, based on footage from the Wagner Group and other news sources, Newsweek can confirm the aerial footage is not of a Ukrainian mass surrender.

European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell did not ask Russia to lower the price of grain for the sake of “fair competition”. In public speeches, the diplomat has said Russia is causing a global food crisis and that Moscow’s actions would lead to a global rise in prices.

Russia seeks to gain influence in Africa in several ways, from disinformation campaigns to sending Wagner Group mercenaries. Why is Africa so important to Vladimir Putin?

A video has been circulating online that allegedly shows “Lord of the Rings” actor Elijah Wood giving the Ukrainian president advice on how to tackle his alleged drug and alcohol addictions. He can be seen recording himself and talking to a so-called “Vladimir”. However, the video has been heavily edited and his agent has confirmed it was not published by the actor.

The OSCE did not confirm the facts of illegal transplantologists operating in Ukraine in 2014 and generally lacks evidence regarding possible organ removal in eastern Ukraine. On October 30, 2014, the organization issued an official refutation. It states that during one of the sessions of the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meetings (HDIM), two Russian non-governmental organizations quoted reports of possible organ removal and sale of human organs in eastern Ukraine. In response to this, a representative of the Ukrainian government stated that these accusations would be investigated as soon as greater access to the region becomes possible. This situation was described by the OSCE Special Representative on Human Trafficking Issues, Madina Jarbussynova, for Ukrainian media. Later, her words were taken out of context in Russian media.

Information about the destruction of the Odesa Transfiguration Cathedral appeared in the Wikipedia article about the church shortly after it became clear which buildings were damaged by the Russian attack on Odesa during the night of July 23. Ukrainian Wikipedia administrator Anatoliy Lutsyuk explains that the editing history of Wikipedia uses UTC time, which currently is three hours ahead of Kyiv time.

Numerous reports from international human rights organizations prove that since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has regularly deployed cluster bombs against Ukrainian civilians and Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. One such cluster munitions attack was the April 8, 2022, Russian missile strike on the Kramatorsk railway station, which killed at least 58 civilians and injured some 100 people.

Ukrainian legislation has prohibited organ transplants of servicemen who died during hostilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since 2019. A new draft law under review is designed to clarify previously adopted norms, broadening the ban on organ removal from servicemen who died in the line of duty anywhere in Ukraine, where hostilities are taking place.

Apart from the fact that the video has been bizarrely edited, it does not mention Zelensky, only someone named Vladimir, and is attributed to an Instagram account with no web presence. Elijah Wood does not have a public Instagram account and the video being shared of him online, allegedly asking Zelensky to seek treatment, is the only recording available. The video appears to have been spread as a Russian propaganda effort and to promote a dubious documentary that falsely credits Tom Cruise as its star. Although Newsweek is yet to hear from Wood’s representatives for comment, we are confident that the video and claims surrounding it are, respectively, inauthentic and false.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly emphasized that it is not going to cede its territory to Russia for peace. For Ukraine, there is only one acceptable way to end the Russian war: the undisputed victory of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the de-occupation of all Ukrainian lands.

The U.S. did not accidentally send $6.2 billion to Ukraine. An overestimation of the cost of some military hardware meant that $6.2 billion was not spent in the transfer of U.S. stocks to Ukraine. While the DOD has said that this can now be used toward future stock drawdowns authorized by the president, that does not mean $6.2 billion has been sent accidentally, and all that implies, to Ukraine.