Fake: French Protestors Used Weapons the West Provided to Ukraine
There is no evidence that any weapons provided to Ukraine by Western
partners were used during the recent protests in France.
Category Fact checks / debunkings
Deadly Kramatorsk missile was Russian – not Ukrainian
On June 28, 2023, a Russian missile hit a crowded restaurant in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. 13 people died in this attack, including at least 3 children and a leading Ukrainian poet and author (as of July 3).
As with pretty much every major strike on civilians, to add insult to injury, false stories immediately began being circulated by pro-Russian influencers online.
Fake translation added to French president’s UN speech about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
A TikTok video shared thousands of times claims to show President Emmanuel Macron apologising to France's former African colonies and pledging reparations during a UN speech in New York in April 2023. But the claim is false: AFP Fact Check traced the footage of the address to a speech from last September and found that the original English translation was replaced with a fake voiceover. Macron did not discuss Africa but talked about the Russian-Ukrainian invasion.
Fake news: No evidence of ‘baby factories’ in Ukraine
Sick: BBC's fact-checking team have traced false claims of "baby factories" in Ukraine back to a notorious online hoax factory.
"Who would possibly lie about something like that?" you might reasonably ask yourself. Depressingly, we have the answer to that question.
No, weapons for Ukraine were not used in French riots
A false rumor on Twitter has been traced by the BBC back to pro-Kremlin propaganda channels.
The deliberately misleading Twitter post falsely claims that weapons possibly among those sent to Ukraine were used against police in the recent riots in France (summer 2023). The attached image shows a fabricated “screenshot” of a non-existent news article.
Were Dead Russian Soldiers Packed Into Grisly ‘Meat Cubes’?
So far Newsweek has been unable to find any evidence to support the "meat cube" claims.
According to local reports, the images of slabs of meat packed in between wooden craters show leftovers of expired animal feed in Russia's Belgorod region, not the bodies of Russian soldiers.
This viral anti-Zelensky billboard on New York’s Fifth Avenue is fake – Truth or Fake
There's been much anti-Ukraine and anti-Zelensky propaganda circulating online since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But a new billboard has just appeared name-dropping Ukraine's leader on New York's Fifth Avenue above a busy flagship store. Many factors point to the video being manipulated. Vedika Bahl explains in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Fake: Counteroffensive Dead and Wounded Information Published in Ukraine
Russian propagandists have created a fake site to spread false information
about Ukrainian counteroffensive losses. There are no public forums or
organizations that track counteroffensive casualty numbers. This
information is confidential. Ukrainian military and their allies note that
Ukrainian Armed Forces losses are much smaller than those incurred by the
Russian army.
Fake: Polish Defense Ministry Urges Citizens to Defend Europe from Wagner Group Founder -…
An "advertising poster" in the photo was faked. The press service of the
Ministry of National Defense of Poland, at the request of a StopFake
journalist, stated that none of their departments responsible for
recruiting candidates for the Polish Army is the author of this poster.
Manipulation: Ukraine Will Join the EU Only in 20 to 30 Years
In an interview with five European publications, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she cannot say exactly when Ukraine will join the EU, as the time frame depends on two factors, internal EU processes and the progress of reforms in Ukraine. At the same time, von der Leyen emphasized that in the long run, Ukraine and the Balkans "cannot but integrate into the EU."