Russia pushes false crisis actor claims about video from Bucha, Ukraine

The Russian Ministry of Defense and other top Russian officials claimed that a video of a car driving through Ukraine showed two crisis actors playing the role of dead Ukrainians in a staged massacre. On Telegram and Twitter, they claimed that the video showed one person moving their arm, and another person seen in the car's mirror sitting up. The video does not show a person raising an arm as the car drives by; it shows a mark floating across the car's windshield ' perhaps a drop of water or a speck of dirt. The video does not show someone sitting up after the car drives by; it shows a stationary corpse through the lens of the car's passenger-side mirror, which has distorting effects. Our ruling The Russian Ministry of Defense said a video taken from a car driving through Bucha, Ukraine, shows a corpse "moving his arm," and then "in the rear view mirror the 'corpse' sits down." Both claims misrepresent what the video in question shows. The video shows a mark floating across the car's windshield ' perhaps a drop of water or a speck of dirt ' which Russia officials falsely portrayed as of a corpse "moving his arm." Similarly, what Russian officials falsely claimed was a corpse sitting up was actually a dead person whose body appeared distorted due to the shape of the car's passenger-side mirror. We rate this claim False.