War

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…

Did Elon Musk just launch the "terrifying hypersonic T-Jet to beat Russia"? No, that's not true: There is zero evidence to support the claim. Musk's private rocket company made no such announcement, and the video making the allegation is at least 8 months old. There are no credible reports of the alleged launch, which would have been front-page news if…

Did 80,000 Polish troops besiege Kaliningrad, Russia? No, that's not true: The video making this claim in its headline does not mention 80,000 Polish troops besieging Kaliningrad, Russia, in its recorded content. There have also been no news reports of this purported event. The claim appeared on Facebook on December 17, 2022. The caption read: Red Alert in Kremlin- 80,000…

Does a video show the Russian government evacuating 800,000 people from the "island" of Crimea? No, that's not true: Russian officials said in media reports and on social media sites that no evacuations have occurred in Crimea. Also, Crimea is a peninsula, not an island. The claim appeared on Facebook on November 7, 2022, under the title "It's all over-…

Did Switzerland ban electric vehicles "due to their excessive energy use" on December 7, 2022? No, that's not true: The country only discussed a draft of legislation that suggested that electric car use might be limited to essential activities such as driving to work or visiting doctors -- but only in the hypothetical case of the most serious energy supply…

Was a man from the Ukrainian city of Odesa sent to prison for 15 years for hanging up the Russian flag? No, that's not true: The unnamed person in question was found guilty of treason, collaboration with Russian forces and kidnapping. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) posted on December 1, 2022. It said: An Odessa man was…

Did graffiti showing Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy eating money appear in the capital of France during November 2022? No, that's not true: Neither local authorities nor the personnel of a store located near the supposed graffiti's site saw it. Journalists sent on location did not find any signs of the graffiti. The absence of other images of the scene suggests…

Do photos circulating on social media show a recently captured Ukrainian POW with a swastika tattoo on his back? No, that's not true: These are seven-year-old images, taken during fighting in 2015 with armed, Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. A 2015 video interview with an individual who closely resembles the man in these photos established that he is…

Are these staged photos taken from the phone of an employee of the Ukrainian CIPSO (Center for Information and Psychological Operations) showing fake victims, proving the war in Ukraine is staged? No, that's not true: The photos were taken in 2016 during a first-aid training exercise for the Ukrainian organization TacCat First Aid. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, several…

Does a trident superimposed on the gold and blue Ukrainian flag represent membership in, or support for, the Nazi political movement? No, that's not true: The trident is the national symbol of Ukraine that is often added to the country's flag. The claim appeared in an Instagram post from November 25, 2022, under the title "Here I am driving to…

Does a viral video show Al Jazeera footage of "Nazi Ukrainians" "arrested in Qatar after they drew swastikas on football posters"? No, that's not true: The network denied that it had anything to do with the clip using its logo. More importantly, the video did not contain shots of the scene with the purportedly existing posters or provide any verifiable…

Did Russian ex-president and the deputy chair of Russia's Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, tweet that Moscow "is ready to supply Poland with the best air defence systems to prevent further aggression from Ukraine"? No, that's not true: archived versions of his Twitter accounts do not show a tweet like that. The claim appeared in a Facebook post on November 20,…

Is a video montage showing before and after photos of Ukrainian buildings damaged by war -- but restored to their original appearance -- an example of propagandists manipulating photos? No, that's not true: Basic image searching independently verifies damage at some of these locations, photographed and videotaped from multiple angles. There is no evidence the war photos are inauthentic. The…

Was U.S. government aid to Ukraine misused by funding Democratic candidates during midterm campaigns through the crypto exchange FTX? No, that's not true: Social media posts did not differentiate between private donations and U.S. government funds allocated to support Ukraine, and no reliable sources reported that either of those was invested in FTX. The claim appeared in re-posts identical to…

Does a viral video prove that the founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, and other speakers at WEF events planned to establish the "new world order" and "microchip human race"? No, that's not true: The heavily edited social media clip only shows short soundbites taken out of context, which alters the meaning of the speeches. The claim appeared…

Did a U.S.-based cable news network publish a story stating that Russian influencer Hasbulla Magomedov died in a drone strike while fighting in Ukraine? No, that's not true: The story is a satirical fake created to look like a credible news report that makes fun of a social media sensation with a genetic condition. The claim appeared in an Instagram…

Has Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy written a book with the same title as Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the anti-Semitic manifesto for Nazism, and did Zelenskyy present the book to an Israeli embassy? No, that's not true. Social media posts showing the cover of the purported book, entitled "Моя боротьба" ("My Struggle" in English and "Mein Kampf" in German), used altered…

Did Titanic, a German satirical monthly magazine, release a cover in October 2022 that features an illustration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sucking money and resources into his mouth? No, that's not true: The October 2022 issue of Titanic does not feature Zelenskyy and the illustration has not appeared on any of the other issues' covers. The claim appeared in…

Does a video circulating on social media show evidence that war footage of Russian attacks on Ukraine was staged? No, that's not true: It took out of context the footage of actual film sets -- one clip dating from 2013 -- recycling the falsehoods that fact-checkers had debunked during the first days of the war. The claim appeared in an…