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.”

According to social media images, Leopard 2 tanks – recently delivered to Ukraine after weeks of waiting – have been destroyed by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group. But Wagner’s head Yevgeny Prigozhin has denied the claims, and the images have in fact been around on the internet for a while. We take a closer look in this edition of Truth or Fake with Vedika Bahl.

Conservative influencers in the United States are claiming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said America’s “sons and daughters” will be obligated to fight and die for his country. This is misleading; Zelensky’s full remarks show he was saying Russia might invade a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country if Ukraine loses the war, implicating the alliance’s members in a larger conflict.

Misleading Material. The clip was removed from its important and clarifying context, giving a misleading impression of what Zelensky said. The Ukrainian leader’s remarks were a hypothetical answer about what could happen should Ukraine lose the war to Russia, partially due to decreased support from the United States. […] Zelensky did not suggest that Americans should send their children to fight now for Ukraine against Russian forces.

The words “big, fat, corrupt sinkhole” are not a direct quote, but an interpretation of what Gates is saying in the edited clip. As his quote shows, Gates was referring to “pre-war” Ukraine, crucial context that was omitted from the clip circulating online. It is not clear what Gates’ timeframe is for “pre-war”—it could refer to before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 or its initial invasion in 2014.

In the video, President Joe Biden appears to say he’s reinstating the draft so the U.S. can help defend Ukraine against Russian forces. The video is a deepfake.

Since the end of 2022, the FRANCE 24 Observers team has seen several similar examples of fake anti-Ukraine advertisements, reportedly on billboards in the United States and Poland. But when we took a closer look, we found some clues that convinced us these ads were fake and that the videos were edited.