Sweden

By Uliana Malashenko Is it true that Finland transferred tanks to the Russian border at the beginning of May 2022? No, it's not true: A video showing trains carrying military equipment captured the Finnish army heading to a scheduled military exercise in the opposite direction. One of the first English-language posts claiming that the Finnish army moved dangerously close to…

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 Nigeria send over 5,000 "military forces to Ukraine"? No, that's nothing to substatiate such a claim: The Nigerian federal government has discouraged Nigerian citizens from joining Ukrainian military forces, as of March 7, 2022. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria reports that some citizens have volunteered to join Ukrainian troops but doesn't say how many. Also, the Armed…

Do these photos show fanciful outfits elderly people came up with after being given access to a forest and told to dress up using the available raw materials? No, that's not true: These photos are the result of a collaborative art project between Norwegian photographer Karoline Hjorth, Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen and the individuals featured in the works. Each person…

Has a Swedish university proved that the COVID-19 vaccine creates spike proteins that are "hijacking" the human body's DNA repair and adaptive immune mechanisms? No, that's not true: The claim was based on a paper withdrawn by the authors after the university in question found flaws in the methodology and conclusions. The claim was made in a November 4, 2021,…

Did King Christian X of Denmark and his wife Alexandrine wear the yellow Star of David sewn on their clothing as an act of resistance against a Nazi rule, thereby encouraging all Danes to do this to protect Danish Jews -- and is this a photo of the King of Denmark and his wife? No, neither of these claims is…

Has Monsanto, the agribusiness controversial for its widely used herbicides, been banned in 15 locations? No, that's not true: The company no longer exists under the name "Monsanto" since it was acquired by Bayer, a company best known for its health care products. Glyphosate, an active ingredient in a herbicide created by the company, has been criticized by and even…

Are Ghislaine Maxwell and Bill Gates first cousins through Gates' mom, Mary Maxwell Gates? No, that's not true. Public records show multi-billionaire Gates is not related to the woman arrested in October of 2020 for luring young women Jeffery Epstein then sexually abused. For Bill Gates and Ghislaine Maxwell to be first cousins sharing Bill's mother's maiden name, Maxwell would…

Did a feminist conference use platform shoes of various heights to negate "height privilege" and lobby to make such shoes mandatory on college campuses? No, that's not true: This post is from a satire page that mocks various social justice causes. The photo used to illustrate this made-up outrage over 'height privilege' actually shows a 1997 conceptual art piece from…