Does a viral video show Cambodia firing RM-70 rockets at Thailand in 2025? No, that's not true: A viral post with over with 2.8 million views on X making that claim used footage that was already available on TikTok in 2022. The clip likely shows events from the Russia vs. Ukraine conflict. One example of the video showed up in…
Does a viral clip show a fighter jet shooting down another one during July 2025 clashes between Thailand and Cambodia? No, that's not true: The video predates the violence that broke out in that region in late July of 2025. Earlier version of the clip have been online at least since mid-June 2025 and were described as footage from the…
Was American Derek Huffman killed in a drone strike while fighting for the Russian military in Ukraine in July 2025? A YouTube account used by his wife claimed in a comment that Huffman is alive and well. Another American acquaintance of Huffman also told Lead Stories that Huffman is alive, but definitive proof was not immediately available. Here's what we…
Does a viral video show the "first Iranian drone" shot down in Israel in mid-June 2025? No, that's not true: The footage was recorded in Ukraine. It's impossible for it to have documented the Iran-Israel conflict, as it was first posted to the web three years earlier. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on June…
Do viral screenshots prove that U.S. taxpayers paid $411,634.00 for Senator Lindsey Graham's hotel stay in Kyiv, Ukraine, in May 2025? No, that's not true: His name is not linked to the spending documented in the images. The Department of State told Lead Stories that the screenshot of the agency's government contract in Ukraine had nothing to do with congressional…
Did U.S. President Donald Trump complain on social media that Ukraine's attacks on Russia interfere with his sleep? No, that's not true: A search across his account on Truth Social did not produce a match to the image a viral post purported to have taken from his account. Searches across an archived version of his account and news reports did…
Did President Trump say that Ukraine must compensate Russia for the aircraft it destroyed in a June 1, 2025, drone attack on Russian air bases? No, that's not true: There is no record of President Trump posting these words on his social media accounts or saying them publicly. A Google search for the quote finds it only on social media…
Did a widely-shared clip show Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian airbases, in retaliation against a series of drone attacks on Russian warplanes in June 2025? No, that's not true: The footage was old, and dated to July 2024 at the latest. It appeared to show Russian missiles striking a children's hospital in Kyiv, not airbases. The claim appeared in a…
Does a video shared online show a huge explosion in Moscow, Russia in 2025? No, that's not true: The video shows an explosion in Crimea in 2023 related to an attack on a ship. It does not show an attack on the Russian capital in 2025. One example of the video being shared with a misleading caption was an X…
Does a viral video really show the destruction of "40 Russian strategic bombers" of type TU-95 destroyed by a "daring Ukrainian FPV-drone swarm raid"? No, that's not true: This particular viral social media footage originates from the video game ARMA3. It does not depict the actual drone strikes reported on by worldwide media on June 1, 2025. The video (archived…
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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