Latest fact checks & sources

Russian social media channels and media are sharing a doctored video that alleges Poland will form army units of “non-traditional orientation”. We disprove these claims in this edition of Truth or Fake.

Verdict: False There is no evidence that the Russian Navy has retreated from any body of water. The Ukrainian Navy has reported that several Russian ships remain in the Black Sea.

Verdict: False There is no evidence NATO has undertaken “Operation Justice.” Check Your Fact has previously debunked claims that NATO is intervening in Ukraine.

CLAIM: Mexico is planning to soon eliminate visa requirements for Russian nationals seeking to enter the country. AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. Mexico’s ambassador to Russia says discussions between the two nations about mutually dropping visa requirements have been ongoing for years, but no agreement has been finalized. Eduardo Villegas Megías, Mexico’s ambassador to Russia, says there’s been no movement in the talks as Mexico remains neutral in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

This story was fabricated. It appeared on Real Raw News, a site that regularly publishes false, fantastical stories authored by someone using a pseudonym. Real Raw News stories are authored by someone using a pseudonym and the site has a disclaimer saying it contains “humor, parody and satire,” though the author has defended his stories as truth. We found no credible news reports or other sources to corroborate the claims in this post. QAnon promotes a number of conspiracy theories that invoke pedophilia and a Democratic cabal. QAnon adherents were present during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These ideas also infiltrated political discourse as recently as the 2022 midterm elections. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!

A doctored image is being circulated online. According to the Stuttgart Airport press service, the monitor featured in the doctored image only broadcasts commercial advertisements or periodic notifications to passengers about security checks and operational changes.

A doctored video is circulating online making an outrageous linguistic claim against Ukrainians. StopFake analyzed the video and found it to be doctored. Russian propagandists edited a false claim into the ticker of a legitimate news story from Ukrainian television.

The Washington Post has not written that the West is sending soldiers to Ukraine. On the contrary, the article Russian media refer to focuses on International Legion foreign fighters who voluntarily go to war – each for his own reasons. None of the countries that are currently providing military aid to Ukraine have expressed readiness to send troops to participate in hostilities, nor has Ukraine ever asked that they do.

Did a Polish news channel really broadcast a weather map showing Poland expanding into Ukrainian territory? Or the TV report on how the Polish army was creating an LGBT paramilitary unit? Both of these video reports do feature the logo of a Polish public broadcaster. But there are a lot of clues that make it pretty clear that these ‘reports’ are fake.

Russian media are claiming that water levels in Ukraine’s main river, the Dnipro, have fallen because Ukraine is draining the river in order to deploy troops to the left bank. In fact, the drop in the Dnipro water level is not connected to any Ukrainian activities, but is the result of Russian shelling which damaged the shut-off valves at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station.

The document being circulated online purported to be a Ukrainian draft notice is a fake. This document does not bear any similarity to an official Ukrainian draft notice, it contains the wrong category names and does not contain pertinent information that is part of a genuine draft notice. The term military commissariat is repeatedly used in the fake document. However, as of 2021 Ukrainian enlistment centers are called Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centers. An analysis of the seal used in the document in question also shows that it was doctored and is not the seal of the Bila Tserkva Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Center.

An audio recording is being circulated online as “evidence” of Ukrainian “sabotage”, however the recording first surfaced online at least in 2018 when it was widely circulated in Kazakhstan.

Purported images of Polish state television have circulated on Twitter showing a national map of Poland’s borders, but overpowering much of Ukraine’s territory. The channel itself and the country’s secretary of state have slammed this as the “Russian propaganda machine” trying to destroy Ukraine’s positive relationship with Warsaw. We take a closer look in this edition of Truth or Fake, with Vedika Bahl.

Russian media and Telegram accounts have been sharing an edited anti-Ukraine poster, allegedly located in the middle of a Parisian metro station. Pro-Russian channels claims the poster shows French people telling Ukrainian refugees that they’ve overstayed their welcome. We debunk these claims in this edition of Truth or Fake.

Russian media claims that humanitarian agencies killed civilians and looted in Soledar are based on one “interview” with an alleged Soledar resident, an interview which is not supported by any other evidence. The Donetsk Region police have not documented any criminal actions against residents involving international or Ukrainian volunteers.

The Polish television channel TVP, whose logo was used on a Russian fake showing a map of Poland that includes neighboring Ukrainian territories, denied they had ever used such a map during any of their programming. The screenshot used by Russian media was taken from a TVP weather forecast, a map was photoshopped with a new map and a presenter from another Polish television channel.

Two viral videos claim to show the Jan. 18 helicopter crash that killed Ukraine’s interior minister and about a dozen others. These videos weren’t from the crash.

As the war in Ukraine raged on in early 2023, rumors about the country’s president rage with it. From claims about his career, to rumors about illicit drug use, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a magnet for doctored images, misinformation, and more. Continue below for a collection of stories about the Ukraine president’s history before and after the war began.

A study by the US think tank CSIS states that the United States may face shortages of certain types of weapons and ammunition. However, this will not be a problem for the American Armed Forces. The United States possesses more than enough interchangeable types of weapons.

StopFake checked the photo using Google and Bing image searches, and found that the photo used to create this latest fake is of a tattoo studio in Russia. The original photo shows a tattoo parlor called “Tattooirograf,” which is located in Biysk, in the Altai Republic of southern Russia. In addition to this low-quality photoshop, Russian media also made a mistake with their special offer, writing the word “акция” (“discount offer”) in Russian instead of “акція”, as it would be spelled in Ukrainian.