Picture showing cars with smashed windows are circulating in multiple social media posts that claim they are vehicles in Ukraine targeted after the Russian invasion for displaying stickers of the Chinese flag. In fact, the pictures were digitally altered to add the flag and were taken years before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian media outlets, including Russia Today, are falsely claiming that the video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to a Kyiv hospital on March 13 was recorded last month, fuelling speculation that he has fled the country.
Col. Oleksandr "Grey Wolf" Oksanchenko, a decorated Ukrainian pilot, was killed in combat on Feb. 25.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded him posthumously with the title of Hero of Ukraine, along with 11 other military service members.
Unconfirmed reports hold that an unidentified pilot, who has come to be called the "Ghost of Kyiv," downed six Russian planes on the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We do not find evidence that this was Oksanchenko.
It's uncertain how the Ghost of Kyiv tale originated, but we know that Ukraine's military reported on Feb. 24 that at least six Russian planes and two helicopters had been downed. Crediting Ukrainian military, CNN and NBC soon reported five Russian planes and one helicopter had been shot down. Russia's defense ministry denied the report, according to Reuters, and said that Ukraine's air force defenses had been "suppressed."
Ukraine's official Twitter account, meanwhile, promoted the Ghost of Kyiv narrative with a video that suggested the mystery pilot could have been responsible for as many as 10 downed Russian aircraft by Feb. 26. That video, too, included footage from a video game.
PolitiFact did not receive a response from Zelensky's administration about Oksanchenko and the Ghost of Kyiv claim.
Finding no conclusive information tying Oksanchenko to the Ghost of Kyiv, we rate this claim False.
The document isn't classified, and there are no direct statements in it about an attack on the Donbas. It makes references to a training camp on the opposite side of the country.
Our ruling
Russian officials shared a Ukrainian document on Twitter with claims that it showed secret, classified orders for a military offensive on the Donbas region in southeastern Ukraine.
This is wrong. There is no proof that the document is classified, and there are no direct statements in it about an attack on the Donbas. The document makes references to a training camp on the opposite side of the country.
We rate claims about a document showing a planned military offensive in the Donbas False.
Videos shared on Facebook claim to show Russian President Vladimir Putin warning Nigeria to stay out of the war in Ukraine or risk entering into its own conflict. But this is false: AFP Fact Check found that the clips use false subtitle translations. One video is from 2020 and shows Putin addressing Russians about the novel coronavirus. In another, he does address Russia's ongoing attack on Ukraine but makes no mention of Nigeria.
Facebook posts shared hundreds of times purport to show a photo of a Ukrainian tank in Iraq. They accuse Ukraine of hypocrisy for condemning Russia's invasion, despite apparently having played a role in the Iraq War. In fact, the tank photo has been doctored to add a Ukrainian flag and coat of arms. While Ukrainian troops did serve in Iraq, the photo resembles images of American troops at the Iraq-Kuwait border during the Gulf War.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, following months of military buildup and, as we’ve written, repeated denials by Russian officials that their country planned to invade.
As is often the case with major news events, we have seen several false and misleading claims made on social media and by politicians related to the conflict.
As the civilian death toll mounted in Ukraine following Russia's invasion, a video has been viewed tens of thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows a "staged scene of the Russian military bombing of Ukrainian civilians". But the clip in fact shows production footage for a science fiction film released years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the movie's director told AFP. The scene was shot in the United Kingdom - not Ukraine.
An image that appears to show an eBay listing for a Russian tank has been shared tens of thousands of times on social media alongside a claim Ukrainians are selling armoured combat vehicles after seizing them. The posts are false; the purported listing has been created using a stock photo that has circulated online since at least 2010. A spokesperson for eBay told AFP the listing was not genuine. According to its website, the e-commerce company does not allow military equipment to be sold on its platform.
A report broadcast on March 7 by the Russian channel Vesti 92 shows a distribution of food to the residents of Kherson, a town in southern Ukraine occupied by the Russian army. But according to the town's residents, the footage shot on March 4 was actually staged and concealed one important detail: residents protesting the Russian occupation in front of the distribution trucks, as revealed by three amateur videos of the same scene.
