Latest fact checks & sources

A Russian court sentenced Brittney Griner, a basketball star from the US, to nine years in prison for bringing a small amount of marijuana into the country. By contrast, US teenager Audrey Lorber was given a slap on the wrist for a slightly more serious case of the same crime.

The propagandists failed to mention that the data submitted to the UN with comes with an explanatory footnote. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees noted that these numbers are merely estimates and there is no information on how many of those Ukrainians who left for Russia later returned back home. For those living in the temporarily occupied territories, leaving through Russia is one of the very few ways of escaping Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On the contrary, former EU foreign affairs advisor Nathalie Tocci urges EU countries to maintain their unity and warns against any concessions to Russia, especially if hostilities in Ukraine diminish. Tocci emphasises that when the violence subsides, the West must show its true resilience and redouble its support for Kyiv, not only to ensure that Russia loses this war, but that Ukraine actually wins it.

According to a YouGov poll, the idea of ​​introducing new additional sanctions against Russia has strong support among Europeans: 74% of those surveyed in Poland, 75% in the UK, 76% in Spain, 55% in Germany, 56% in Italy, 62% in France, all support the introduction of additional economic sanctions against Russia in their country. What the Europeans are unwilling to support are further sanctions against Russia if it would negatively impact their own standard of living. It was this single indicator – one of many in the survey – that the Kremlin media focused on, portraying it as the overall European sentiment on sanctions, thereby manipulating the integrity of the YouGov survey data.

Sanctions and Siemens turbine “technical problems” are not an impediment to the normal operation of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. The significant reduction in Russian gas supplies to Europe and Germany in particular, happened for political reasons and not because the turbine hasn’t been repaired, as Russia claims. The Russian Federation continues to use its energy resources as a tool to blackmail EU countries for their support of Ukraine.

The alleged Switchblade 300 sale ads use photos of two different Switchblade drones, both of which were damaged and shot down in Syria in the past decade. These photographs first appeared on the web six and seven years ago, respectively.

The owners of Epic Gym in Benalmadena, Spain, whose building features on a photograph being disseminated by Russian media and officials, say they have never had anti-Ukrainian graffiti on their wall. Photo verifications apps also show the picture has been doctored.

Russian propagandists are using a recent Le Monde article about former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko possibly using his military activities as a campaign slogan in the upcoming elections as a military coup plan. The article does not mention any such plans or make any assumptions about him preparing a military coup in Ukraine.

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has not make any statements about a “Ukraine attack” on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. On the contrary, Guterres stressed that shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant is suicidal and must be stopped immediately.

The rate of crime has not increased in Ukraine. Compared to 2021, in 2022 the overall crime rate in Ukraine decreased by 25%. Serious crimes remained at approximately the same level as 2021.

Russian forces seized the Kakhovka (a run-of-river power plant on the Dnipro River in Nova Kakhovka, southern Ukraine) in the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Much of the equipment needed for modernization of the plant is produced only in Ukraine or in EU countries. In order to install more powerful equipment, it is necessary to alter the power station’s design, this in turn can damage the plant’s reinforced concrete dam. Such work would last for several years and would raise capacity only by some 5% and not the 30% that Russian propagandists claim.

If Amnesty International had done the proper research, it might have found that the Ukrainian forces took all feasible measures to protect its population against the effects of hostilities while defending the population and territory against the crimes of the Russian forces, two leading experts on humanitarian law write. International humanitarian law (IHL) is a body of law specifically designed to protect civilians and those who have laid down their arms. In sum, Amnesty International’s conclusions are short on facts and analysis and long on intemperate accusation.

The Pentagon and the Ukrainian Armed Forces denied Russian Defense Minister Shoigu’s claims about the “destruction” of HIMARS system used by the Ukrainians. The photo and video of broken military equipment shows an Oshkosh military truck and an M777 howitzer, not an American HIMARS.

Russian media manipulatively distorted the sense of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s statement about a possible special Russia tribunal to address war crimes and atrocities committed by the Russian military in their war against Ukraine. The European Union, the United States and many other countries support the establishment of such an international tribunal, and while all agree that it is a necessity, the format of the court is still under discussion.

A recent article in the American conservative online magazine The Federalist is made up of a series of manipulative theses that in their totality eventually compose a propaganda narrative about civil war in Ukraine. According to a May 2022 opinion poll conducted by the respected Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on the perceptions of the Russia-Ukraine war among Ukrainian citizens, only 1% of Ukrainians were found to have a “predominantly pro-Russian position”. Another May 2022 survey also conducted by KIIS showed that only 2% of Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards Russia, while an overwhelming 92% have a negative attitude.

Oleksiy Vadaturskyi, the founder and CEO of Nibulon, one of the largest Ukrainian agriculture companies, was killed along with his wife on July 31 during the massive shelling of Mykolayiv by Russian invaders. One of the 50 rockets that Russia fired at the city that night hit his home. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General opened an investigation into his killing, one line of investigation being pursued is Vadaturskyi’s home was targeted intentionally.

The Catherine II statue is the property of the Odesa City Council. The city of Odesa, and not the Ukrainian President will decide its fate. The Ukrainian President cannot single handedly order that the Odesa statue be demolished or replaced, he simply does not have the authority or the power to do so. This is the responsibility of the local city authorities. Russian media however chose to focus only on the petition which ironically proposes to replace a Russian empress with an American porno star, which gathered 26,468 signatures of support.

Serhiy Volynsky, the commander of Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, who is in Russian captivity, has not said anything that could be interpreted as support for the Russian propaganda version of the deadly explosions at the prisoner of war camp in Olenivka.

A video clip of motorists angrily dragging away demonstrators who were blocking a highway has been viewed tens of thousands of times in online posts that claim it shows Ukrainian anti-war protesters obstructing traffic in Spain. This is false: the clip was filmed in a highway in the Italian capital Rome. The group that staged the protest told AFP it showed a climate demonstration unrelated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A NATO Defense College report highlights that Russia appears unable to gain victory over Ukrainian forces, but expresses fears that the Kremlin may rebuild its army and accumulate forces to confront NATO countries in the future.