Category The war is a hoax

This video is from a climate change protest in Austria. It doesn’t show crisis actors in Ukraine

The people under the tarps aren't crisis actors from Ukraine trying to fool people into thinking they are dead. They were part of a protest against climate change that was held in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 4.

The clip is from a Feb. 4 demonstration against climate change in Vienna. The reporter, Marvin Bergauer, is from an Austrian news channel called OE24 TV and is speaking German in the video. An English translation of the chyron on the video says "Vienna: Demo against climate policy."

The people under the tarps aren't crisis actors ' from Germany, Ukraine or anywhere else ' trying to fool people into thinking that they are dead. They're protesters from Austria in a video taken before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

We rate this False.

March 4, 2022
Disinformation Fact checks / debunkings Media taken out of context Methods Misconceptions Narratives The war is a hoax Ukraine

Evidence of Russia’s war in Ukraine is plentiful and proves it is not ‘staged’

News reports, testimonies of citizens-turned-fighters, and a swift global response all fly in the face of baseless claims that Russia's war on Ukraine is "staged."

"There is little to refute directly, other than to note that thousands or millions of people would have to be in on any conspiracy to fake a war, and like the 9/11 attacks (which some people also deny) there is substantial video footage of attacks on Ukrainian cities, Russian invading forces, and throngs of refugees," Radnitz said.

Nevertheless, he added, "a true believer will persist in denying all that evidence, something that is easier to do when the conflict is geographically distant and they do not personally know anyone directly affected by it."

With a war raging, the world responding and both sides of the conflict experiencing its effects, the claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is "scripted and staged" holds no merit. We rate it Pants on Fire!

Austrian climate change protest video misused in false posts about Ukraine conflict

As the civilian death toll mounted in Ukraine following Russia's invasion, a video was viewed hundreds of thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows a Ukrainian reporter inadvertently exposing fake war casualties in a live broadcast. This is false: the video shows a climate change protest in Austria that was staged weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Footage shows Ukraine in 2022, not Russia in 2018

Social media posts claim US broadcaster ABC misrepresented a video of a 2018 gas explosion in Russia as footage from the war in Ukraine. This is false; the clip was shot in Ukraine by a Turkish news agency, and a similar video from AFP confirms that the incident took place following Russia's 2022 invasion of its eastern European neighbor.

March 2, 2022
Disinformation Fact checks / debunkings International community Misconceptions Narratives Russia The war is a hoax Ukraine USA

Fake CNN tweet falsely reports first US casualty in Ukraine

Social media posts claim CNN lied to the public by tweeting that a man was the first US casualty in Ukraine after previously featuring the same photo in a post about his execution in Afghanistan. This is false; the network says the tweets are not from its official accounts, and the man pictured is a YouTube video game commentator who continues to livestream on the platform.

Russian spokesman’s statement ignores centuries of Russian attacks

Historians cite upwards of a dozen examples dating back to the 1500s in which Russia or the Soviet Union attacked another country without being militarily attacked first.

• Russia may offer various justifications for why it attacked another country in these instances, but each of these examples involved militarily unprovoked actions by Russia or the Soviet Union.

Our ruling
Peskov said, "Russia has never attacked anyone throughout its history."

Historians cite upwards of a dozen examples dating back to the 1500s in which Russia or the Soviet Union attacked another country without being militarily attacked first.

Russia may offer various justifications for why it attacked another country in these instances, but contrary to Peskov's statement, each of these examples did involve militarily unprovoked actions by Russia or the Soviet Union.

We rate the statement Pants on Fire.