After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a video of men in military uniform embracing women was viewed more than 350,000 times in social media posts that claimed it showed Ukrainians saying goodbye to loved ones before going off to fight. In fact, the footage was taken from a documentary about the 2014 conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Three photos have been shared thousands of times on Facebook in Tanzania and Kenya alongside a claim that they show a young Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier. But this is false: the images are screenshots from a YouTube video of Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi challenging an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank in 2012.

Two images of huge explosions among residential buildings have been shared hundreds of times on social media alongside a claim that they show Russia’s attack on Ukraine. But the claim is false: the photos show Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in 2018 and 2021.

Facebook posts are circulating in Africa claiming to feature an image of Ukrainians kneeling and praying in the snow days before Russian troops invaded their country on February 24, 2022. In reality, the picture dates back to 2019 and shows residents of Kharkiv who had been praying every day in the city square since March 2014 when Russian separatists attacked Ukraine.

As Russian troops invaded Ukraine, a video was viewed hundreds of thousands of times in social media posts that claimed it showed a huge explosion at a power plant in the separatist Luhansk region. While there have been reports of a fire at a power plant in the region, the video has been shared in a false context. It actually shows a deadly blast that ripped through the Chinese port city of Tianjin in 2015.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, images purporting to show Ukrainian acts of resistance have been shared widely on social networks. The Ukrainian population is indeed carrying out a strong resistance in several cities, but some of these posts are actually images taken out of context and have nothing to do with the ongoing conflict.

The video-sharing app TikTok has become a tool in the hybrid war in Ukraine, but fake news and scams connected to the conflict also abound on the platform. We take a closer look in this edition of Truth or Fake.

WHEN Russia invaded Ukraine last week, several disinformations were in circulation which prompted the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to swing into action.

As the civilian death toll mounted in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, a video was viewed hundreds of thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows a Ukrainian reporter inadvertently exposing fake war casualties in a live broadcast. This is false: the video shows a climate change protest in Austria that was staged weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.

A video has circulated in social media posts that claim it shows Russian President Vladimir Putin praising Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan after the two leaders met in Moscow on the day Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine. The clip was viewed hundreds of thousands of times in posts by Pakistan-based social media users. In fact, the video’s English-language subtitles have been misleadingly altered. In the original clip, Putin was shown criticising Ukraine.

A video of a plane engulfed in flames and falling from the sky has been viewed more than 1.5 million times in social media posts that claim it shows a Russian fighter jet shot down by Ukrainian forces in February 2022. In reality, the video predates the Russian invasion of Ukraine and shows a Libyan jet targeted by rebels in 2011.

A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times across social media platforms alongside a claim it shows missiles over Ukraine after Russian forces invaded on February 24. But the video has been shared in a false context: it shows digitally animated footage from the video game War Thunder that circulated online months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Footage of armored vehicles set alight by Molotov cocktails on a Ukrainian street is being presented on social media as local resistance against Russia’s ongoing invasion. This is false; the recording is from Ukraine, but it was shot in 2014 in Kyiv during the country’s popular protest movement, when demonstrators torched the army’s vehicles.

Social media posts claim US broadcaster ABC misrepresented a video of a 2018 gas explosion in Russia as footage from the war in Ukraine. This is false; the clip was shot in Ukraine by a Turkish news agency, and a similar video from AFP confirms that the incident took place following Russia’s 2022 invasion of its eastern European neighbor.

A Facebook post claims a video shows fighting in Ukraine. This is misleading; most of the footage was shot in Syria and released by Kurdish forces, while part of the clip is taken from CNN coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times on Facebook alongside a claim it shows Russia bombing Ukraine. The video was shared shortly after Russian forces invaded the neighbouring country. But the video has been shared in a false context: it is actually an animation clip that has circulated online since at least October 2021.

Russian state media says the missile can destroy an area the size of Texas or France, not the world. We could not find more objective reports detailing the same destructive power. “Individual warheads would strike distinct targets within a very limited ballistic ‘footprint,’ or many warheads from the same missile would strike the same target, increasing the likelihood of destroying that target completely,” according to a 2021 report from EurAsian Times. The weapon is believed to be able to evade missile defense systems and its deployment is expected around 2022, said a March 1 Congressional Research Service report. We rate the claim that a Russian nuclear weapon dubbed Satan 2 is “capable of destroying everything breathing in the world” False.

Social media posts claim CNN lied to the public by tweeting that a man was the first US casualty in Ukraine after previously featuring the same photo in a post about his execution in Afghanistan. This is false; the network says the tweets are not from its official accounts, and the man pictured is a YouTube video game commentator who continues to livestream on the platform.

As Russia pressed on with its invasion of Ukraine, a video clip was viewed thousands of times in Facebook and YouTube posts that claimed it showed live footage of the fighting. In reality, the footage was taken from a combat video game called ARMA 3.

On Twitter, videos from February 25 showing a military tank running over a car in the Obolon district of Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv have garnered over ten million views. But contrary to what some users claim, this is not a Russian tank deliberately running over a civilian. There are many indications that the incident actually involved a Ukrainian tank.