War

Did Twitter make a rule that users may not display the flag of Ukraine on their profile because it is considered a political statement against Russia? No, that's not true: A post from Walter Report contained a fabricated image which appeared to be a screenshot of a notification from Twitter. A day later, Walter Report published a notice that this…

Was Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the first time 100,000 troops had invaded another country since World War II? No, that's not true: There are many examples of military forces totaling more than 100,000 invading other countries since the end of the Second World War in 1945. The claim appeared in a video (archived here) posted…

Has U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "never served in combat"? No, that's not true: A publicly available profile of Milley lists his numerous operational deployments over the past several decades. The claim appeared in a post on Instagram on February 8, 2023. The caption read: Anyone?? The text above a photo of Milley…

Did a British government department ask families hosting Ukrainian refugees to report adult males to the Ukrainian embassy in January 2023? No, that's not true. A spokesperson for the UK Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities told Lead Stories on February 6, 2023, that a letter shared online was a hoax. In early February 2023, social media users posted…

Does a video circulating on social media show American M1 Abrams tanks in Poland? No, that's not true: The clip was shot in the United States, in Kansas. While the video lacks the precise details needed to establish whether the tanks in question are indeed M1 Abrams, the claim that these tanks were delivered to Europe just a day after…

Did Russian special forces, under the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, destroy an "adrenochrome lab in Ukraine" as of January 23, 2023? No, that's not true: This claim comes from a website that regularly publishes fabricated content. Lead Stories has previously debunked content from this website that mentioned the "adrenochrome" conspiracy theory. The claim appeared in an article published…

By Evgenia Prodaeva Did the Russian media outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda (Young Communist League Truth) report that Ukrainians used dead Russian soldiers to assemble a battlefield image of assassinated Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in honor of Bandera's January 1 birthday? No, that's not true: The page administrator of the Ukrainian Facebook page TFN, which regularly mocks mainstream Russian media, confirmed…

Did new graffiti negatively portraying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appear in London? No, that's not true: Based on analysis of open-source data, Lead Stories identified the location of the purported drawing as Lindt Home of Chocolate in Zurich, Switzerland. The Lindt Home of Chocolate spokesperson confirmed to Lead Stories that the posts in question showed the front of their building,…

Did an image of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy depicting him as a "locust" eating up budgets around the world appear in New York City's Central Park as of January 10, 2023? No, that's not true. A Lead Stories reporter found no traces of it and the NYC Parks Press Office denied seeing such a drawing. The claim appeared in a…

Did the BBC post a graph that showed a dramatic increase in the "Fortunes of Ukrainian politicians" between February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and December 2022, after the receipt of billions of dollars in U.S. assistance? No, that's not true: The BBC did not post this image, which has been widely distributed on social media.…

Does a set of online images prove that there is a "covert military base" on the planet Mars? No, that's not true: There have been no documented human missions to Mars, whether for military or other purposes, as of the date of this fact check, and a NASA spokesperson was not able to identify the images as authentic. The claim…

Was "Russia's most advanced nuclear submarine' seen floating in Hawaii on December 26, 2022? No, that's not true: A social media post making the claim uses footage from a fictional TV show. The story appeared in a post published on Facebook on December 26, 2022. It contained a video of what appeared to show a beach crowd surprisingly observing an…

Did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bring a national flag with the "Nazi SS" symbol to Washington, D.C.? No, that's not true: The image circulating on social media was flipped to distort the original inscription. The claim appeared in a post published on Facebook on December 23, 2022. It contained an image showing U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President…

Does the image in this tweet document Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska on what appears to be a private jet after she spent "€40000 on a shopping trip in Paris"? No, that's not true: The image is a digital manipulation that puts her face on a selfie posted by a bitcoin promoter in August of 2022 on his Twitter feed.…

Did former German Chancellor Angela Merkel reveal in an interview plans by the United States and NATO for war in Ukraine with Russia? No, that's not true: Nowhere in her interview with the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel, which was published in November 2022, does she talk about NATO plans for the war. The claim appeared in a Facebook…

Did President Joe Biden put his hand on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's buttocks while pausing for a photo op during Zelenskyy's December 2022 visit to the United States? No, that's not true: The original image was posted to Twitter by Jill Biden and shows both Jill Biden's and Joe Biden's hands on Zelenskyy's back. The image was digitally edited and…

Did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy say the word "butthole" when giving President Joe Biden a medal at the White House? No, that's not true: Zelenskyy was saying "Pavlo," the name of the Ukrainian Army military captain who sent his merit award to Biden. The video that claims Zelenskyy gave Biden a "butthole" award does not reflect what the Ukrainian leader…

Is there a "huge army of 2500000 Chechens preparing the end of Russia" or helping "get Putin out of the bottleneck" in Ukraine? No, that's not true: The self-contradictory claim that fails to mention a source cites an unrealistic number exceeding the entire population of the Chechen republic. The claim appeared in a post published on Facebook on December 24,…

Have 80,000 Ukrainian troops totally blockaded Russian invasion forces fighting in Ukraine's semi-occupied eastern Donetsk region? No, that's not true: The post making the claim in its caption does not mention a blockade in an accompanying video. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Donetsk on December 20, 2022, and did not say his forces had surrounded the Russian invaders. Keyword searches…

Did Leonel Messi, an Argentinian football star who led his national team to the 2022 World Cup, swear at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Instagram, demanding that the Ukrainian leader "take [his] people and get out of Europe" and displaying a sign with profanity directed at Zelenskyy? No, that's not true. The image was digitally altered, and Messi did not…