This unfounded claim originated on a website known for publishing misinformation. Putin has freed 35,000 children in Ukraine, a country he’s invaded, or anywhere else. There are no credible sources nor news reports to support this. Searching for evidence that Putin saved thousands of children, we only found articles reporting that Russian police jailed several children for leaving flowers at Ukraine’s embassy in Moscow. We rate this post Pants on Fire!

Verdict: False The cover is digitally fabricated. A Time Magazine spokesperson confirmed the outlet did not publish such a cover. [Note: This article is dated April 2022. Zelensky was featured on the 26 Dec., 2022 cover of Time Magazine, as its ‘Person of the Year’]

Accusations that the OSCE provided Ukrainian Armed Forces with coordinates of military targets obtained through its video cameras are unfounded. StopFake found obvious inconsistencies in Russian media stories on the subject. For one, the video footage offered as “material evidence” was taken in a different area long before the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In addition, the OSCE cameras in question were incapable of recording video at long distances; for this purpose UAVs would have been used.

Nine out of ten Ukrainians believe in Ukraine’s victory in the war with Russia. 98% of all Ukrainians support the Ukrainian Armed Forces in their fight against the Russian invaders.

The tweet was fabricated and did not originate with CNN. The photo in the post was taken in 2017. It was published in a March 30, 2022, story by CNN about the Azov Battalion of the Ukraine military. In that story, the photo caption says it was taken outside Kyiv on July 14, 2017, and shows “a student at a paramilitary camp for children call(ing) the rank to attention.” The AP confirmed with the photographer, Alex Masi, that it was taken at a “summer camp from 2016-17, where kids learn about the realities of war.” CNN did not tweet about “brave children” in Ukraine signing up to fight Russia, and we rate the claim Pants on Fire!

The Kremlin continues to insulate the Russian population from the outside world in terms of access to reliable information, including an increasingly threatening stance towards Wikipedia. Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor claimed that Wikipedia had become the source of “a new line of constant attacks on Russians” and that its articles promoted “an exclusively anti-Russian interpretation of events”. The future of Wikipedia in Russia is up in the air, but as of yet, the online encyclopaedia still remains accessible.

There is no evidence that the Russian army actually shot down a Ukrainian transport plane in the Odesa region. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, the Pentagon and local media all refuted these Russian reports.

The Vatican allegedly paying Russia for gas in rubles turned out to be Twitter joke, the person who posted it, ended up apologizing for it. Even though the post was a joke, Russian media and social media users rushed to republish it as real news.

The video which allegedly shows an attack on a humanitarian convoy, in fact shows an attack on the Russian military. This is clear from the distinguishing letter “Z” painted on vehicles, soldiers in Russian camouflage and the weapons they carry.

There’s no credible evidence that Ukraine was behind the April 8 attack at the Kramatorsk train station. A video used to bolster this claim is fake ‘ it did not come from the BBC. The claim has largely been spread by pro-Kremlin accounts following reports of civilian casualties and contradict earlier Russian posts that initially took credit for the bombing. The Tochka-U missile used in the attack, and the serial number on it, isn’t proof that it came from the Ukrainian army. Several news reports, legitimate photos and videos show that Russia has used these missile systems recently. Our ruling Facebook posts claim that Ukraine was responsible for the Kramatorsk train station bombing. A video used to bolster this rumor is fake. Although the video has a BBC logo, it was not produced by the news organization. There’s no credible evidence that Ukraine was behind the attack. The Tochka missile used in the attack, and the serial number on it, isn’t proof that it came from the Ukrainian army. Several news reports, legitimate photos and videos show that Russia has used these missile systems recently. The rumors that Ukraine attacked the train station have largely been spread by pro-Kremlin social media accounts. We rate this claim False.

International organizations confirm that it is Russia, and not Ukraine, that is blocking some 90 ships carrying foodstuffs in the Black Sea. There have also been at least three recorded cases of Russia bombing merchant ships carrying goods from Black Sea ports. Russian media continue to accuse Ukraine of being “aggressive” not only towards Russia, but also towards the entire civilized world. Since February 24, 2022, state media have actively promoted the claim that Ukrainian authorities are allegedly “forcibly detaining” “some 70 foreign merchant ships” in ports to “blackmail the whole world”. Russian media also claim that Ukraine has “deliberately mined” the Black Sea to “create Russophobe provocations”.

The full version of an Al Jazeera television story shows the Ukrainian military to be actively involved in the evacuating people from liberated Irpin, to the capital Kyiv. The military are not using medical vehicles for their own transportation, they are simply accompanying injured civilians who are being taken to hospital. Russian media, however, showed only a snippet of the complete Al Jazeera three-minute story, thereby concealing the full scale of the ongoing evacuation and the devastation Russian troops had inflicted on Irpin, and used the snippet taken out of context to accuse Ukraine’s military of an imaginary war crime.

The VERIFY team analyzed two videos claiming to show an attack on Russian warship Moskva. Here is how we know those videos weren’t taken in 2022.

Citing the Russian Ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova, Russian media are claiming that the Kremlin is not forcefully deporting Ukrainians from territories currently occupied by the invading Russian army. […] The evacuation of civilians from territories occupied by invading Russian troops has been problematic and raised numerous questions from the very beginning of the war. In parts of Mariupol captured by the Russian forces, many civilians had no choice but to go to territories not controlled by Ukraine or to go to Russia. Many did so under pressure from the Russian military, who forced them to leave their shelters and hiding places and directed them to “filtration camps” for identification and interrogation. Those who passed the filtration were then transported to various Russian regions, those who did not were imprisoned.

Atrocities committed by the Russian military in Bucha, Kyiv region are confirmed not only by Ukrainian authorities but also by governments of other countries and international organizations. Out of 519 cases of reported chemical weapons use in Syria, 349 have been “credibly confirmed”.

A video claiming to be a BBC News report suggested Ukraine bombed one of its own train stations. The video was fake and did not come from BBC News.

As Russian strikes pounded the besieged port city of Mariupol in Ukraine, Facebook posts shared in various languages claimed US General Roger L. Cloutier was captured by Russian forces there. However, NATO said the rumour was “completely false” and that Cloutier, who leads NATO’s Allied Land Command, had not been to Ukraine since July 2021. Cloutier was in Turkey when the false claims about his whereabouts circulated online.

The drones Russian media are claiming Ukrainian troops use to spray poisons are not combat drones, but rather DJI AGRAs T30 agricultural drones which are used in farmland management. According to the All Ukrainian Federation of Drone Owners, the drones in the video circulated by the Russian media belong to their client and they were stolen by the Russian military.

Other countries have worse money laundering and human trafficking problems than Ukraine, according to experts and government reports. Now amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a post claiming Ukraine is the “money laundering and child sex trafficking capital of the world!” According to the State Department’s latest Trafficking in Persons report, Russia has a more serious problem with child sex trafficking than Ukraine. Both countries struggle with the issue, the report said, but Ukraine took action to address it between 2020 and 2021, while Russia failed to make “significant efforts” to eliminate the problem. While Ukraine convicted traffickers, increased financial assistance to victims, and launched awareness campaigns, Russia “convicted only one trafficker,” failed to “initiate any new prosecutions of suspected traffickers,” and “offered no funding or programs to provide services for trafficking victims.” Russia, not Ukraine, is among 11 governments the report says have “a documented ‘policy or pattern’ of human trafficking, trafficking in government-funded programs, forced labor in government-affiliated medical services or other sectors, sexual slavery in government camps, or employment or recruitment of child soldiers. The report also ranks countries based on the extent of government efforts to meet minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking. Tier 1, the United States’ ranking, is the highest, but it doesn’t mean the country has no human trafficking problems. Rather, it means the country fully meets minimum standards to eliminate trafficking. Tier 2 ‘ Ukraine’s tier ‘ means a country’s government doesn’t fully meet the minimum standards but is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance. Tier 3 includes countries such as Afghanistan and Russia that don’t meet the minimum standards and aren’t trying to. We rate this post False.

Verdict: False The person who originally made the claim later said it was satirical. There is no evidence Winfrey announced the book’s removal.