Did this footage of a gun battle between Ukraine and Russia get caught on camera in 2022? No, that's not true: Sky News' YouTube channel posted this exact video on August 3, 2018, with the title, "On the frontline in Ukraine | Hotspots." The 2:51-long clip seen on Facebook starts nine minutes 41 seconds into the YouTube video. The claim…

Is it true that a Canadian sniper who calls himself Wali was killed in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol before March 23, 2022? No, that's not true: The person who runs the online application portal for Canadians volunteering to go to Ukraine told Lead Stories that the sniper is alive. Additionally, the sniper told Canadian news media that…

Did a Russian teenage volunteer die in Germany after being beaten by Ukrainian refugees on March 20, 2022? No, that's not true: German police said no complaint or report of such a killing has been received. The person narrating the video about this claim did not witness it and provides no names or other details by which such a claim…

Is a meme correct that Chelsea Manning was "in jail" as of March 2022? No, that's not true: Manning was released from jail in 2020 and is free as of this writing. Manning's recent tweets from her verified Twitter account, as well as news reports about her, confirm that she is no longer incarcerated. The claim appeared in a Facebook…

By Uliana Malashenko Is it true that Ukrainian forces used the people of Mariupol as a human shield to blame Russia for civilian casualties on March 21, 2022? No, that's not true. The claim was made without photographic, eyewitness or documentary evidence. It closely mirrors claims made by Russia Today, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, and other organs of Russian…

Did this woman witness a detonation or bomb attack that destroyed a theater where children were sheltering in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on March 16, 2022? No, that's not true: Her path from a sports complex shelter to the evacuation site she describes on the video would not pass the theater location, which is in the opposite direction. Russian…

Did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flee Kyiv for a bunker in Poland? Is this evident because he posted a video filmed in front of a greenscreen with a scene of Kyiv added as a background? No, that is not a conclusive argument: There is no evidence that President Zelenskyy is in Poland, and he maintains that he is in Kyiv.…

By Uliana Malashenko and James Rosen Was U.S. citizen Brent Renaud, who was killed March 13 by Russian troops at a checkpoint near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, an American intelligence operative? No, it is not true. The claim was made with no evidence of Renaud's affiliation with the CIA or any other U.S. spy agencies. He was an award-winning…

Did President Joe Biden's wartime ban on Russian oil imports cause the cost of gasoline to skyrocket and would completing the XL branch of the Keystone pipeline bring prices down? No, that's not true: Oil market experts and economists say the Russia ban is not the only driver of gas prices and bringing the XL section online would not guarantee…

Does a Facebook video show Russian soldiers using a Soviet-era rocket-propelled grenade in Ukraine during the 2022 invasion? No, that's not true: Two military experts contacted by Lead Stories in March 2022 said the uniforms worn in the video don't match those of Russians fighting in Ukraine. Nick Reynolds, a research analyst for land warfare at the U.K.'s Royal United…