Does an image of a Russian passport shared on social media in spring 2022 prove that Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy is a secret Russian citizen? No, that's not true. Analysis of similar images shows that forged passport scans are easy to create with free software if one has a passport-style photograph of a person. Zelenskyy's image in the social media…
Does a picture of a grieving girl hugging a tombstone stem from the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict? No, that's not true. The photograph first appeared on a Georgian-language website in January 2019. The original image contained a Georgian-language inscription, but it was cut out from the later versions of the picture, adding more ambiguity about where the photograph was taken. The…
Did NASA hand over control of the International Space Station (ISS) to Russia after a Russian official threatened to crash it into Earth? No, that's not true: A NASA spokesperson told Lead Stories that a long-established ceremonial change of command "does not represent overall control of ISS. That remains unchanged with the crew." There was no threat to "crash it…
Is it true that Russia destroyed a NATO base in the Ukrainian city of Ochakiv? No, it's not true. Not a single NATO facility has ever existed in Ukraine. The Ochakiv naval base belongs to Ukraine, not NATO. While it was reported that Russians shelled the base on more than one occasion, a video of its purported destruction contains unrelated…
Did U.S. Air Force F-35s carry out an air raid in the Black Sea destroying Russian forces in June 2022? No, that's not true: The United States, while offering billions of dollars in military aid, equipment and training to Ukrainian forces since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has not been involved in any direct military operations against Russian…
Did a Russian airplane get hit with a missile, killing 50 people, in 2022? No, that's not true: A fatal plane incident happened on May 6, 2019, before the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian war. Forty-one people died as a passenger plane crash-landed at a Moscow airport. Surviving passengers suggested that the crash happened because of a lightning strike that hit the plane.…
Is it true that at the beginning of June 2022 Poland annexed Ukraine? No that's not true. Such posts on social networks began to appear after the publication of a press release from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, in which the alleged state contract for the construction in Poland of a backup data processing center of the Ukrainian tax service…
Did nearly 100 food processing plants mysteriously explode in 2022? Did 10,000 cattle in Kansas die mysteriously too? No, neither of those claims are true: Lead Stories determined the food processing explosions claim was false -- because there were no explosions. There were some fires, as a previous Lead Stories fact check found, but they were not caused by arson.…
Did the city of Miami sponsor a gun buyback program in support of Ukraine? Yes, that's true: The June 18, 2022, event is being used to get guns off the street and also to support Ukraine. Donations are going to the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), according to the city's website. The claim appeared in an Instagram post on…
By Uliana Malashenko Is it true that a "classified" Azov document proves that over two-thirds of the Mariupol population support Russia? No, that's not true: The link to the English-language article by the state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) did not contain any evidence to support the claim. Multiple discrepancies cast doubts on the authenticity of the shared document allegedly…
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