Did Ukrainian soldiers turn back a Russian incursion with paintball guns? Did Reuters represent a photo of soldiers training with paintball gear as an actual military conflict? No, that's not true: The photo originally included in a May 16, 2022, article was captioned to reflect that it showed a training simulation in Sumy, Ukraine, on April 15, 2022. This caption…

Did "US General Eric Olson" surrender with other troops in at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine? No, that's not true: The image of a line of soldiers used in a post is from April 14, 2022, which was weeks before the Ukrainian military announced in May 2022 that Ukrainian forced had completed their "combat mission" in Mariupol, and…

Was the Russian ruble named the "world's best-performing currency" in May 2022? Yes, but that claim requires significant context: Bloomberg did publish an article on May 11, 2022, stating that the ruble was the "year's best performing currency." However, the Bloomberg article also provided the necessary information to clarify the claim, explaining that the ruble appears much stronger theoretically than…

Did Polish armed forces write a letter in April 2022 announcing a plan to send "airborne units" to Ukraine? No, that's not true: The Armed Forces General Command of Poland debunked the claim. There are also no other credible reports of such an order. The claim appeared in this tweet (archived here) posted on May 2, 2022. The tweet included…

Did a NATO Patriot missile attack hit Russian troops near the Ukraine border? No, that's not true: A NATO official confirmed there was not any kind of NATO attack on Russian troops in late April 2022. The Patriot is used by more than 17 nations as part of defensive -- not offensive -- military measures. It is the U.S. Army's…

Did Ukrainian troops attack a Russian armored vehicle convoy with dozens of "U.K.-sent tanks"? No, that's not true: The video posted, which is filled with footage of tanks, has absolutely no footage of Ukrainian troops attacking a Russian convoy. The U.K. did not send tanks to Ukraine but to Poland so that Poland could send older Soviet-era T-72 tanks to…

Did a Ukrainian drone drop dozens of bombs and destroy 530 Russian tanks on May 4, 2022? No, that's not true: There were no reports of such an attack, and a video with the claim features footage of totally unrelated, earlier events. The claim appeared in a Facebook post on May 3, 2022. The post features a video of war…

Was the "Ghost of Kyiv" identified after dying in battle? No, that's not true: The Ghost of Kyiv is not a real person. The mythical aviator "embodies the collective spirit of" Ukrainian pilots, according to the Twitter account of the Ukrainian air force. The Ghost of Kyiv has been both a rallying point and a source of pride for the…

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 Ukrainian soldiers prepare a poseable dummy with tape to use in the production of war propaganda, to fabricate a death with a fake corpse in order to "blame Putin"? No, that's not true: This behind-the-scenes video shows a prop dummy being prepared for a scene that would show a human figure falling from a tall building. After the clip…

Did a Pentagon official say that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the cousin of George Soros? No, that's not true: There is no evidence of a Pentagon official saying this or of a familial relationship between Zelenskyy and billionaire philanthropist Soros. This claim was seeded to the public by an account from India, @OsintUpdates, that has a history of planting…

Does a video in the Ukrainian city of Bucha show "corpses" waving and moving alongside a road? No, that's not true: Bodies laying along the street can be seen in a video taken after Russian forces pulled out of the town, but none move or wave. The video making that claim blurs images and distorts the scene by slowing the…

Is the Russian Consulate in Montreal located on "Avenue Zelensky" as of March 31, 2022? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for the city of Montreal tells Lead Stories, "This is misinformation." The sign in the image of this post was fake; it was featured in a satirical show based in Quebec on March 10, 2022. The claim appeared in…