Nato Ukraine

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 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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

Did Germany declare war on Russia on October 11, 2022? No, that's not true. There are no credible reports or official statements confirming this claim. Even a video posted on Facebook with a headline asserting that Germany had declared war on Russia provided no information about a formal declaration of war nor anything else that would substantiate such a claim.…

Did the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Gen. Valery Zaluzhnyi, wear a bracelet with a Nazi insignia? No, that's not true: The motifs and clasp on his bracelet resemble a design series that is marketed as a Viking Bracelet, and the charm in question is called a Solomon's knot. It is an ancient design that has been used…

Are iodine pills sold in a Canadian Home Hardware store? Yes, that's true: The operations manager for the store featured in a viral video told Lead Stories the pills are for sale at their location due to rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine and the threat of a possible nuclear war. The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on…