Category International community

Fake: Ukraine keeps foreign ships out of ports under threat of sinking

International organizations confirm that it is Russia, and not Ukraine, that is blocking some 90 ships carrying foodstuffs in the Black Sea. There have also been at least three recorded cases of Russia bombing merchant ships carrying goods from Black Sea ports.

Russian media continue to accuse Ukraine of being "aggressive" not only towards Russia, but also towards the entire civilized world. Since February 24, 2022, state media have actively promoted the claim that Ukrainian authorities are allegedly "forcibly detaining" "some 70 foreign merchant ships" in ports to "blackmail the whole world". Russian media also claim that Ukraine has "deliberately mined" the Black Sea to "create Russophobe provocations".

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Fake: Atrocities in Bucha, Chemical Attack in Syria, and the Work of White Helmets…

Atrocities committed by the Russian military in Bucha, Kyiv region are confirmed not only by Ukrainian authorities but also by governments of other countries and international organizations. Out of 519 cases of reported chemical weapons use in Syria, 349 have been "credibly confirmed".

Read MoreFake: Atrocities in Bucha, Chemical Attack in Syria, and the Work of White Helmets…

No, the BBC didn’t air a video claiming Ukraine bombed one of its own train stations

A video claiming to be a BBC News report suggested Ukraine bombed one of its own train stations. The video was fake and did not come from BBC News.

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Senior US military officer was not captured by Russian forces in Ukraine

As Russian strikes pounded the besieged port city of Mariupol in Ukraine, Facebook posts shared in various languages claimed US General Roger L. Cloutier was captured by Russian forces there. However, NATO said the rumour was "completely false" and that Cloutier, who leads NATO's Allied Land Command, had not been to Ukraine since July 2021. Cloutier was in Turkey when the false claims about his whereabouts circulated online.

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FACT CHECK: Did Oprah Winfrey Remove ‘War and Peace’ From Her Book Club Due To Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine? | Check Your Fact

Verdict: False
The person who originally made the claim later said it was satirical. There is no evidence Winfrey announced the book’s removal.

Read MoreFACT CHECK: Did Oprah Winfrey Remove ‘War and Peace’ From Her Book Club Due To Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine? | Check Your Fact

Fake: International Organizations Don’t Want to Investigate Bucha Atrocities

Amnesty International and many international organizations as well as representatives from various countries have expressed the need to investigate war crimes in the Kyiv region committed by Russian troops. Hundreds of journalists from all over the world and EU representatives have visited the towns where the atrocities were committed, international human rights activists, foreign forensics experts and representatives of the International Criminal Court are all collecting evidence of crimes committed.

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Fake: Borrell for Resolving Conflict in Ukraine Militarily

Josep Borrell is proposing tougher sanctions to pressure Russia to stop its war crimes in Ukraine. He sees increased weapons supplies to Ukraine as a way of helping Kyiv protect its territory and its people from Russian army attacks and notes that Ukraine will definitely prevail.

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Disinformation: Russia presented specific evidence to the UN on crimes committed by the Ukrainian authorities against their own citizens in Bucha

Therefore, the Kremlin’s claim that they presented a set of evidence to the UN which proves Ukraine’s crimes in Bucha is fake. That which the Russian Ambassador presented at a special press conference and the UN Security Council are impossible to be considered as “evidence.” Most of them are easily verifiable false claims and the rest is absurd allegations which are not considered as evidence in any format.

Read MoreDisinformation: Russia presented specific evidence to the UN on crimes committed by the Ukrainian authorities against their own citizens in Bucha

No, Zelenskyy and Soros are not cousins

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and billionaire philanthropist George Soros are not cousins. ​The claim is "entirely false," said a spokesperson for Soros' Open Society Foundations.

A viral Facebook post falsely says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and billionaire philanthropist George Soros are related by birth ' one in a series of baseless claims about links between the two.

Soros has been at the center of many debunked claims about his connections to Ukraine, including that he wanted to run the country and that he was using the Ukraine "as a playing field to undermine (former President Donald) Trump's campaign," NBC News reported in 2019.

More recently, false claims have said that Soros admitted on television that he helped overthrow the former Ukrainian president in order to help Zelenskyy take office.

The NBC News story noted that Soros "has long been the target of conspiracy theorists about Jews controlling the world." Soros and Zelenskyy are both Jewish.

We rate the claim that Zelenskyy is a cousin of Soros Pants on Fire!

Read MoreNo, Zelenskyy and Soros are not cousins