Politicians and experts shared a photo of burning books on May 21, claiming that the Russian army had begun getting rid of Ukrainian books in occupied areas. While Ukrainian authorities have reported cases of Russian soldiers destroying books, the photo actually shows a book burning organised by pro-Russian protesters in Crimea in 2010.
J.D. Vance personally invested as much as $300,000 in the video sharing platform Rumble, although the precise details remain private.
RT, a Russia state-sponsored service that amplifies Kremlin messaging, posts its videos and livestreams on Rumble.
RT generates millions of views on Rumble, which increases the platform's value to advertisers.
Our ruling
Ryan said, "Vance profits off Russia propaganda."
Ryan's claim is based on Vance's investment in Rumble, the platform where RT posts its videos.
RT amplifies Kremlin messaging, and in the past two and a half months, RT has produced nearly 2 million views on Rumble. More views mean more advertising revenues for Rumble, and RT's presence adds value to Vance's investment.
But other programs on Rumble attract many more viewers, and the details on Vance's investment in the company are not public. Rumble's CEO earlier this year said the company has yet to turn a profit.
With that caveat in mind, we rate this claim Half True.
A video has been viewed thousands of times in multiple Facebook and Weibo posts alongside a claim it shows Russian troops blowing up a military convoy carrying US-supplied weapons to Ukraine. However, the claim is false; the clip in fact shows computer-generated imagery from a war video game called ARMA 3.
A story making the rounds online about Ukrainian refugees is false and is intentionally stylized as a Bild news story. In fact, the video is a collage of several videos from previous years.
A video viewed more than 300,000 times on Facebook has been shared alongside claims that it shows Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fighting in February 2022. This is false; the video, which has been online since at least 2019, shows troops of the French Foreign Legion in battle, although it remains unclear where the footage was filmed.
On May 14, pro-Russia social media accounts started circulating a photo of a group of soldiers taken prisoner by the Russian army. These accounts claimed that one of the prisoners in the photo is a retired American admiral by the name of Eric Olson. That claim is false: this photo actually shows Ukrainians taken prisoner by the Russians in April 2022, well before the soldiers in the steelworks surrendered.
A Reuters photo of Ukrainians training for combat is being used as supposed evidence that the war there is fake. It's not.
A screenshot of a tweet by conservative activist Jack Posobiec is spreading on social media as evidence that the war in Ukraine is staged.
Trudy Rubin, a foreign affairs columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote from outside of Kyiv in February that civilian trainees were "practicing with cardboard guns or plastic paintball guns or hunting rifles from home until they are provided military weapons."
Even members of the U.S. military have used paintball guns for training exercises.
The war in Ukraine is real, and it has been well-documented by reporters and citizens on the ground in the country.
We rate claims that this photo proves it's being staged Pants on Fire.
A photo being shared amid the war in Ukraine shows Russian priests blessing a missile before a parade in 2015. It doesn't show them blessing the so-called "Satan 2" missile that was unveiled a year later.
The Rubizhne Central City Hospital Infectious Diseases Department was restored back in 2017 with funds from the United Nations Development Program and the Government of Japan. According to Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, before the war, the infectious diseases department of the city hospital in Rubizhne had state of the art modern equipment and was considered one of the best in Ukraine.
• A Mississippi nonprofit, Operation Ukraine, sent $10,000 worth of baby formula to Ukraine in March.
• There is no evidence that the donated formula contributed to current U.S. baby formula shortages, which are attributed to supply chain problems that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, plus the recall of some formula that led to a manufacturing plant shutdown.
Causes of the U.S. shortage are described by Bloomberg as "long-term economic pressures collid(ing) with a sudden supply shock." The long-term issues are related to the pandemic, which led to supply chain and shipping disruptions, as well as labor shortages. And the supply shock, Bloomberg explained, came when Abbott Laboratories recalled its baby formula and shut down a Michigan manufacturing plant because of concerns about contamination.
The claim that donations of baby formula to Ukraine are related to the current U.S. shortage is unfounded. We rate it False.