So far Newsweek has been unable to find any evidence to support the "meat cube" claims.
According to local reports, the images of slabs of meat packed in between wooden craters show leftovers of expired animal feed in Russia's Belgorod region, not the bodies of Russian soldiers.
There's been much anti-Ukraine and anti-Zelensky propaganda circulating online since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But a new billboard has just appeared name-dropping Ukraine's leader on New York's Fifth Avenue above a busy flagship store. Many factors point to the video being manipulated. Vedika Bahl explains in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Russian propagandists have created a fake site to spread false information
about Ukrainian counteroffensive losses. There are no public forums or
organizations that track counteroffensive casualty numbers. This
information is confidential. Ukrainian military and their allies note that
Ukrainian Armed Forces losses are much smaller than those incurred by the
Russian army.
Several churches and a Jewish yeshiva destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling. BBC News report from March 2022.
An "advertising poster" in the photo was faked. The press service of the
Ministry of National Defense of Poland, at the request of a StopFake
journalist, stated that none of their departments responsible for
recruiting candidates for the Polish Army is the author of this poster.
In an interview with five European publications, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she cannot say exactly when Ukraine will join the EU, as the time frame depends on two factors, internal EU processes and the progress of reforms in Ukraine. At the same time, von der Leyen emphasized that in the long run, Ukraine and the Balkans "cannot but integrate into the EU."
UNESCO list of damaged cultural sites in Ukraine - 260 as of 19 June. (Note that this list includes only those sites that have been verified by UNESCO - a complete list would be far longer.)
The video shared on Twitter has been edited. The explosion seen in the film is a video effect, available on TikTok.
The original video, which has been shared on other social media for at least seven months, shows the soldier using the shell to hammer a component into the tank before turning and smiling at a group behind him.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny did not say
that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had turned into a clown show. He only
emphasized that despite the lack of crucial weapons and equipment, the
Ukrainian military are gaining ground every day.
The photo used in the Kennedy campaign ad is from a picture used to help illustrate designs for online stores. The same retouched photo has been used by multiple online outlets.
While Newsweek was unable to find the location of the store, it does appear to have been shot in Russia or a Russian-speaking region.
However, there is no suggestion the choice of the photo was deliberate and is far likelier to have been an oversight of the RFK Jr. campaign team. Other photos the campaign has used for its merchandise were also shot in other locations around the world.