Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Is Underway. How It’s Going Isn’t Clear
TIME.com article from June 2023, surveying the state of Ukraine's summer counter-offensive against Russia.
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Is Ukraine Photo of Organ Harvesting Victims’ ‘Mass Grave’?
The photo in the tweet is not of an organ harvesting site in Kharkiv, but an exhumation in Lyman, Ukraine, from October 2022.
The photo depicts the uncovering of a mass grave in Lyman about a week after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the formerly Russian-occupied city. It has nothing to do with the material the tweet describes.
Did Tokyo Billboard Show ‘Stop War, Stop Zelensky’?
False. The video of the anti-Zelensky billboard in Shibuya, Japan, is fake. It was edited from a popular clip that's been on YouTube for more than two years and viewed more than eight million times. There is no evidence that any such billboard has been displayed in Shibuya, one of the busiest and most popular neighborhoods in Tokyo, Japan.
No, this video doesn’t show Ukrainian soldiers ‘giving up without a fight’
Pro-Russian social media accounts have been widely sharing a video that they claim shows Ukrainian soldiers surrendering to the Russian army en masse. The video, however, actually shows a prisoner swap between the Russian state-funded paramilitary group, the Wagner Group, and the Ukrainian army in May 2023.
Fake: Charlie Hebdo Ridicules Ukrainian Fencer Olha Kharlan
Russia's propaganda machine periodically disseminates fake French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo magazine covers, to buttress the disinformation narrative the Kremlin in currently pushing. Whatever Russian media and its acolytes claim, there is no Charlie Hebo cover dedicated to Ukrainian Fencer Olha Kharlan.
Is This an Authentic Ad in Japan Reading, ‘Stop Zelenskyy, Stop War’?
Claim: A video that went viral in July 2023 authentically depicted an ad in Japan that read "Stop Zelenskyy, Stop War."
Rating: Fake
Context: The video was posted in October 2020, before the Russian attack on Ukraine, and was digitally edited.
Fake: President Nixon “Predicted an American war” in Ukraine
Pro-Kremlin media are actively spreading misinformation about the 37th US President Richard Nixon's alleged prediction of war in Ukraine. Referring to Nixon's declassified letter to the 42nd American President Bill Clinton, Russian media claim that Nixon predicted an "American" Revolution of Dignity and an "American" war in Ukraine.
Video shows Ukraine prisoner swap, contrary to pro-Russia claims
Social media posts claim a video depicts Ukrainian soldiers surrendering to the Russian army. This is false; the clip shows a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Wagner mercenaries in late May 2023 near the city of Bakhmut.
Russia’s Eliminationist Rhetoric Against Ukraine: A Collection
Dating at least to 2008 or 2009, increasingly hostile language laid the groundwork for rejecting Ukraine’s existence as a state, a national group, and a culture.
What follows is a compilation of publicly available statements (readers are invited to submit by email any that we may have missed).
Experts such as Francine Hirsch, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg,” have pointed to such language as evidence of genocidal intent toward the Ukrainian people. Whether and how the concept of “genocide” applies to Russia’s campaign against Ukraine is the subject of debate, notwithstanding the reference in Article II of the Genocide Convention to “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.”
Fake Zakharova: Ukrainians Want to See Putin as Their President
Russian claims that Ukrainians would like a president like Vladimir Putin are false. After Russia's occupation and annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of hostilities in Donbas in 2014, Putin's standing among Ukrainians plummeted and reached a minimum after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
