War

Was a letter from the British Ministry of Defence about the Ukrainian Armed Forces' non-NATO-compliant level of training legitimate and "leaked" from the UK government to a website? No, that's not true: The published document's authenticity cannot be verified. Given several errors in English grammar and terminology, the document did not originate from the desk of the British Army Secretariat.…

Did the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB), one of the largest German academic libraries, ask its readers to bring in Russian books "for heating purposes"? No, that's not true: SLUB General Director Katrin Stump denied the leaflet's authenticity and said that the library had filed a criminal complaint about the claim. The claim appeared in a Facebook post…

Did the Swiss government call on its citizens to turn in their neighbors to the authorities if people heat their homes above 19 degrees Celsius (66.2 degrees Fahrenheit)? No, that's not true: A claim on social media originated from a tabloid article that misled its readers about the extent of possible energy-saving measures in case of gas shortages. As of…

Is North Korea sending troops to Ukraine to help the Kremlin's war efforts? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, Moscow appeared to be considering the idea of North Korean workers, not soldiers, working on reconstruction in Ukraine's Russian-occupied regions, severely damaged during months of fighting between Russia and Ukraine. Previous reports about an alleged agreement to ship…

Did a Ukrainian wedding party pose in front of the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine and raise their hands in a "Nazi salute"? No, that's not true: The flag in the picture has been altered, and the original photo was taken at the base of a monument to Vladimir Lenin in the Russian city of Novokuznetsk in the Kemerovo Oblast in…

Does a form circulating on social media show an official report of the American military describing as unsatisfactory the level of the Ukrainian army's preparedness? No, that's not true: This form, easily downloadable from one of the U.S. Army websites, is not intended to be completed for this type of large-scale assessment -- instead, it is for counselors working with…

Was the second plane to hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, a military plane? No, that's not true: The plane that hit the south tower was United Airlines Flight 175, a commercial plane. The 9/11 Commission Report described "The Hijacking of United 175" with eyewitness accounts including phone calls made from the plane. The claim was inferred…

Are these posts proof that British elementary school students and kindergarteners are being taught to tolerate sexual abuse? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to authenticate pictures of a brochure about strangers who approach, with the brochure saying, "do not call him a pedophile." Posts about the brochure first appeared on a Russian social media platform, citing an un-named…

Is the U.S. Navy ready to deploy a multi-billion-dollar aircraft carrier that can go airborne? No, that's not true: A video that announced supposed U.S. Navy plans to deploy such a carrier used images from the fictional Marvel Cinematic Universe. A U.S. Navy spokesperson told Lead Stories that the video's claim is not accurate. The video (archived here) was published…

Did NATO's most lethal fighter jets arrive in Ukraine? No, that's not true: As a close NATO partner -- but not a member country -- in 2022 Ukraine received non-lethal defensive support in its battle against invading Russian forces, according to NATO's website. The photograph with this claim is from 1998, and is of a partially disassembled F-22 Raptor being…

Did four robots powered by artificial intelligence kill 29 scientists in Japan on August 28, 2022? No, that's not true: This is a 4-year-old hoax with a fluctuating time and place of the purported incident, not backed up by any corroborating reports from credible sources. The current variation includes old shots of two different robots, but neither of them was…

Did Ukraine launch a counterattack against Russia by crossing its border and blowing up a Russian power plant, leaving the country in flames? No, that's not true: Although the Ukraine military has launched some cross-border missile attacks since Russia invaded the country on March 24, 2022, no Russian power plants have been destroyed by Ukraine and there is no evidence…

Did NATO send "10 thousand" troops to Ukraine? No, that's not true: There are no credible reports about that. Moreover, the social media posts that made this claim did not contain a single verifiable detail about the purported event. The story appeared in a Facebook post on August 25, 2022. The caption says: Putin is stuck: 10 thousand NATO Troops…

Did France 2 intentionally misinform its audiences about an incident in the war in Ukraine on August 10, 2022? No, that's not true: The French TV channel's report about a strike that hit buildings surrounding Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant overall correctly reflected the situation on that day, but one segment misidentified a building chimney as an unexploded missile. In…

Does a TikTok video prove that Ukrainians are staging Russian attacks? No, that's not true: The video is behind-the-scenes footage of a Ukrainian film that is described by its Facebook page as depicting "the heroic actions of the residents of Kiev during the occupation." The claim was implied in a TikTok video posted in August 2022. The video included the…

Did a suspect named "Samoylo Haidyuk" have anything to do with the recent killing of Aleksandr Dugin's daughter Darya Dugina? No, that's not true: A tweet making the accusation was using a photoshopped image of comedian Sam Hyde, the latest in a long internet trolling tradition of blaming Hyde for every assasination or shooting that goes viral online. In the…

Are Russia and China creating a "new global reserve currency" based on "rare earth minerals" as videos on social media claim? No, that's not true: The original source of the story, Russian President Vladimir Putin, brought up the idea of a reserve currency based on a basket of currencies of BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa…

Does a Facebook video show the Ukrainian navy destroying "13 Russian warships in the Black Sea"? No, that's not true: The clip recycles old unrelated footage of Russian -- not Ukrainian -- ships in action. More importantly, the video never discusses the 13 "destroyed" ships mentioned in the caption -- the narrator only says that those are "on high alert."…

Does this video show pirates trying to take over a U.S. military ship? No, that's not true: This video shows scenes taken from different sources, but the opening scene -- a small red target boat under heavy machine gun fire, a scenario that appears several times through the video -- shows a target boat that is part of a U.S.…

Does a video posted on Facebook prove that Israel destroyed one of Russia's nuclear submarines, the Kazan? No, that's not true: The clip contains an image of a different submarine, and there have been no credible reports about any Russian submarines being attacked, damaged or destroyed by Israel as of August 9, 2022. The claim originated in a video published…