Latest fact checks & sources

News reports, testimonies of citizens-turned-fighters, and a swift global response all fly in the face of baseless claims that Russia’s war on Ukraine is “staged.” “There is little to refute directly, other than to note that thousands or millions of people would have to be in on any conspiracy to fake a war, and like the 9/11 attacks (which some people also deny) there is substantial video footage of attacks on Ukrainian cities, Russian invading forces, and throngs of refugees,” Radnitz said. Nevertheless, he added, “a true believer will persist in denying all that evidence, something that is easier to do when the conflict is geographically distant and they do not personally know anyone directly affected by it.” With a war raging, the world responding and both sides of the conflict experiencing its effects, the claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is “scripted and staged” holds no merit. We rate it Pants on Fire!

“Maria Zakharova’s claim that Ukraine started this war is false. The Russian Federation illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sparking broad international condemnation. On February 21, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine from the north, northeast, and from the Crimean Peninsula in the south, initiating a full-scale interstate war between Russia and Ukraine”.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 feature an alleged CNN tweet that claims American actor Steven Seagal took up arms alongside Russian special forces in Ukraine. But CNN said the tweet — which includes an image of Seagal in fatigues and carrying a weapon — is fake, and his representatives also rejected the claim, saying the actor wants peace for both countries.

The viral image of children waving off troops dates back to 2016. It does not depict the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Our ruling Social media posts claim that a viral image, which shows two young children holding hands and saluting troops, was captured in Ukraine in 2022. But the photo traces back to 2016. We rate these posts False.

No legal agreement prohibits NATO from expanding eastward. Russians have argued that comments made by U.S. and other Western leaders during the negotiations over the reunification of Germany constituted a promise that NATO would not extend beyond then-East Germany. Those allegations have sparked decades of debate amongst those involved in the events, and scholars studying them. Even scholars who say they believe western powers did offer the Soviet Union assurances about NATO expansion say Owens’ claim is misleading. Our ruling Owens said, “NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward.” There is an ongoing historical debate over comments that Western leaders, including Baker, made during post-Cold War negotiations, and whether what they said amounted to assurances that NATO would refrain from welcoming in countries closer to modern-day Russia. But NATO as an organization made no such pledge, and the formal agreement signed at the end of those negotiations said nothing about the alliance not expanding eastward. We rate this claim Mostly False.

British website The Telegraph is reporting that Russia is using mobile crematoriums in Ukraine in bid to hide its losses. But the accompanying video footage of a crematorium actually dates from 2013. It was posted by a Russian incinerator construction company and is not footage from the ground. The use of mobile crematoriums by Russians during the current war in Ukraine is yet to be verified. We tell you more in this edition.