A Russian court sentenced Brittney Griner, a basketball star from the US, to nine years in prison for bringing a small amount of marijuana into the country. By contrast, US teenager Audrey Lorber was given a slap on the wrist for a slightly more serious case of the same crime.

A video clip of motorists angrily dragging away demonstrators who were blocking a highway has been viewed tens of thousands of times in online posts that claim it shows Ukrainian anti-war protesters obstructing traffic in Spain. This is false: the clip was filmed in a highway in the Italian capital Rome. The group that staged the protest told AFP it showed a climate demonstration unrelated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The video circulating on social media has been edited – a running line claiming that a large fire in Spain was allegedly caused by Ukrainian refugees was deliberately added on the screen. In reality, the running line reported on the driver, arrested for assaulting a passenger and driving under the influence.

The lack of victims from the Russian missile attack on the Odesa port on July 23 does not excuse Russia – it still carried out another act of aggression and violated the agreements made the day before. UN representatives did not say anything about the Russian attack on “military warehouses” in the Odesa port. On the contrary, the UN has once again condemned Russian attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Verdict: False The footage was taken during a 2017 event at the University of Ghent. The event was not affiliated with NATO.

The petition on the Ukrainian President’s website calling to resume the negotiation process with Russia does not reflect Ukrainian public opinion. Despite a certain degree of fatigue and constant attacks by Russia, Ukrainians remain united in their determination not to make any concessions to the aggressor. According to a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) poll conducted between July 6 and July 20, 84% of Ukrainians are not ready to make territorial concessions in order to end the war.

At the end of the 19th century, Ukrainian was the third most widely spoken language in Odesa, after Russian and Yiddish. According to the 1897 Russian Empire General Census, 37,925 inhabitants of Odesa declared Ukrainian as their mother tongue.

Verdict: False The photos show a set of custom-built Lego figures. A Lego spokesperson confirmed the images do not depict an official product.

Conducting “referendums” at gunpoint is a violation of Ukrainian legislation and international law. Neither Ukraine nor any other country will recognize the results of such “voting”. Any fake “referendums” in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories are legally null and void and have no lawful consequences.

The international community does not recognize occupied Crimea or other Ukrainian occupied territories as independent republics, or the territory of Russia. Vladimir Rogov, quoted by Russian propaganda about alleged international contacts, is under European sanctions for threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, and has no authority to “establish contacts” with anyone, because he does not represent any official authorities.

Ukrainian grain and Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports have become one of the central themes for Russian propaganda since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The range of Russian narratives on this topic is vast: from statements that Russia is “not involved” in the shelling of Ukrainian grain storage facilities and grain export port infrastructure, to stories about a “global conspiracy” against Russia, which is “not allowed to trade” grain, stolen from temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. StopFake collected and analyzed the main Russian narratives about Ukrainian grain.

On July 24th Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that Odesa was shelled by Russian armed forces. The information that a warehouse was hit with Harpoon missiles is likely untrue. The Ukrainian Military’s press office said that Russian Kalibr cruise missiles damaged a pumping station. The types of explosions that rocked the port of Odesa do not indicate that an ammunition depot was struck. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres explicitly condemned the strikes on the port. This attack took place less than 24 hours after Russia signed an agreement freeing up grain export from Ukrainian ports.

There is no proof that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a net worth of $596 million or receives a monthly income of $11 million. Leaked financial documents showed Zelenskyy had several assets like real estate property and cars, but not enough to corroborate the claim made on Facebook. A report by Forbes found the Ukrainian president’s net worth was closer to $20 million to $30 million. Our ruling A Facebook post shared a screenshot from a website claiming to show Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s net worth as being $596 million while receiving a monthly income of $11 million and a salary of $780,000. The website featured in the Facebook post offered no corroborating evidence for the claim. Leaked financial documents showed Zelenskyy did have some assets, but nowhere near what’s being claimed on the website and Facebook post. A report by Forbes found his net worth to be much smaller, around $20 million to $30 million. We rate this False.

With Eastern Europe in turmoil following the invasion of Ukraine, a Facebook post shared hundreds of times claims Russian President Vladimir Putin is ‘in South Africa’. The post includes a video broadcast showing Putin arriving in the country for alliance talks. However, this is misleading: the video was filmed in July 2018 ahead of the 10th summit of the BRICS group, which was hosted by South Africa.

A new hoax has been targeting Ukrainian refugees. These two men covered in Nazi tattoos, wearing beach shorts, have been presented as Ukrainian refugees in Croatia by pro-Russian Twitter accounts. In reality, the images show Hungarian members of a neo-Nazi group.

But a video being shared on social media a few weeks later perhaps buoyed Ukraine’s supporters. The description in the July 17 post said “Sievierodonetsk’s air defenses shot down 55 Ka 52 helicopters.” Dozens of comments cheered on Ukraine, with Ukrainian flags and GIFs congratulating the country. That’s because anyone who watches the video can clearly see that the footage isn’t authentic. It’s a video game. We rate claims of this footage’s veracity False.

Ukrainians were not involved in any way in the video that was published by Russian propagandists showing protesters blocking traffic. It was not Ukrainians who were blocking the road to traffic, but local environmental activists from the Extinction Rebellion organization.

Russian claims that the US Embassy in Ukraine has evacuated its staff and ceased working is not true. Both the embassy and its consulates continue working. Claims that the Odesa consulate has closed are completely ridiculous, as that particular office closed four years ago in 1918.

Starting in August, Ukrainians who were granted asylum in Poland will be able to process identification cards through the foreign division of Ukraine’s State Migration Service. The Polish government has absolutely nothing to do with this new program.

A video of a railway track being removed has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times after it circulated in posts that claim it shows Lithuania cutting off transit with a Russian exclave after the EU sanctioned certain goods in response to Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in 2022. Although Lithuania did follow the EU sanctions in blocking certain goods to Kaliningrad, the video has been shared in a false context. It was uploaded in a 2017 post about railway repairs in Estonia, years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Keyword searches found no official reports about Lithuania removing the railway track.