An image from a November 2022 explosion in the Nova Kakhovka dam is going viral. Some users claim that it shows the precise moment Russian forces blew up the dam, while others say it shows the destruction of the dam by Ukrainian armed forces. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine. A viral video that purports to show the explosion of the dam is, in fact, of a 2022 blast.
Reuters reported in April that leaked documents allegedly from U.S. intelligence agencies estimated as many as 354,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have died or been injured in the war. Reuters has not been able to independently verify the documents, and U.S. officials said some files appeared to be altered.
The Facebook video's claim that 1 million Ukrainian soldiers have been "wiped out" is much higher than any official reported estimates. So we rate this claim False.
As of January 2023, Ukraine's population ranged from 28 to 34 million people, according to Ukraine's Ptoukha Institute for Demography and Social Studies. Temporarily occupied territories are not included in the calculations. The United Nations Population Fund meanwhile cited a figure of 36.7 million people, taking into account the temporarily occupied territories.
Because the video predates Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and because it was filmed in Afghanistan, we rate the version claiming that it shows a build-up of NATO forces in Ukraine "Miscaptioned."
An old video of a Russian tank toppling over at a military parade has been viewed tens of thousands of times in posts that misleadingly claim the driver who overturned the vehicle subsequently avoided being sent to the front line in the war against Ukraine. The clip -- which recirculated shortly after a military parade in Moscow in May 2023 -- corresponds with media reports from 2018 about an accident at another event in the western Russian city of Kursk.
The video circulating online is satirical and its author is not and has
never been a 'Ukrainian refugee in Europe.' The woman from the video
permanently lives in Ukraine and films many satirical sketches on TikTok.
However, Russian propaganda used the 48-second joke video to once again
discredit Ukrainian refugees.
A video has surfaced in social media posts that falsely claim it shows protesters rallying against Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in May 2023. While Russians have genuinely protested against Putin's war in Ukraine, the footage shows an anti-Kremlin protest in May 2013.
A photo of a burning building is being shared on Twitter alongside claims it shows a fire at a factory supplying aircraft engines to Russia's military amid its war in Ukraine. This is false; the image first appeared in 2018 and shows an oil refinery that caught fire, according to reports from the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Moscow and news articles from the time.
The Ukrainian Intelligence Chief of the Defense Ministry did not call to kill all Russians. In his interviews, Kyrylo Budanov emphasized that anyone who committed war crimes in Ukraine will be found and liquidated in any part of the world. He never called for killing Russians on national grounds, as the Russian media reported. Such narratives are another Russian propagandist attempt to present Ukraine as a country of flourishing Nazism.