Does this video show the moon eclipsing the sun over the North Pole at "the border of Russia and Canada"? No, that's not true: A NASA spokesperson told Lead Stories that this video "isn't showing a real phenomenon." This footage is from a computer-generated image (CGI) video created by a Ukrainian digital artist. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived…

Did American food processing facilities mysteriously and suspiciously begin to catch fire after President Joe Biden predicted that there could be real food shortages due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? No, that's not true: Several incidents on a list of food processing facilities where incidents have occurred predate Biden's comments on food shortages and also predate Russia's invasion. Some…

Do social media posts show Russian agents arresting neo-Nazis for an assassination plot and then displaying their confiscated property? Maybe, it's not clear what the images show: A video of the purported raid was released by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) that included still images of what its agents allegedly found. The "evidence" displayed was staged in such a way…

Did Finland vote to join NATO? No, that's not true: The Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C., told Lead Stories that such a decision has not been made yet. Finland and Sweden plan to submit their NATO applications in May 2022, according to The Guardian, but Finnish parliamentary groups had not officially voted on this issue at the time of writing.…

Did Great Britain threaten to use nuclear weapons against Russia during the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict? No, that's not true: A spokesperson at the press office of No. 10 Downing Street in London -- the office of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson -- told Lead Stories that the claim was not true at the time of writing. The claim, which may…

Does a Stew Peters Show video prove mainstream media and the U.S. government lie about the war in Ukraine? No, that's not true: The video by the radio and TV host repeats debunked claims and misattributes information, often embracing Kremlin talking points. The claims appeared in a Facebook post on April 7, 2022, under the translated-from-Russian title "LIE Mode:" It…

Did Google remove a blur on publicly available satellite maps that had previously obscured details of Russian military installations or high-security areas? Not according to Google: Claims posted on Twitter saying that the company had unblurred sensitive satellite imagery were countered by the official @GoogleMaps Twitter account, which said no blurring changes had been made to the satellite imagery in…

Does a video on social media show the Russian warship Moskva -- the English-letter spelling of the Russian term for "Moscow"-- being hit by a missile before later sinking in the Black Sea? No, that's not true: The 10-second clip comes from a longer video posted in 2013, showing the Norwegian military testing a Naval Strike Missile off the coast…

Did the BBC release a video suggesting Ukraine has spread fake news about a train station attack in the country? No, that's not true: The BBC stated that the video was fake. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) on April 13, 2022. The tweet contained a video attributed to the BBC. It reads: The BBC is distributing a…

Did something big, an asteroid or a missile, crash into the moon or explode and blow right through it -- and was this event caught on camera in both Texas and California as it happened? No, none of that's true: These two videos were originally posted on TikTok and YouTube in 2020 and 2021 by VFX (visual effects) hobbyist Greg…