The information has been spread in social networks that the Joint Forces Operation in Donbas headquarters has been practically destroyed. The news source is the post of the head of the "DPR" Denis Pushilin.
However, this is fake. The adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Anton Gerashchenko, has already refuted it.
A media specialised in putting the spotlight on Russian disinformation has highlighted a false flag attack in eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian media outlets were pinning on Kyiv. Corpses likely retrieved from a morgue were used to set the scene.
How then can the well-oiled Russian machine produce such "low-cost" disinformation? "Simply because, for the moment, the Russian authorities do not need to do better." [...]
What’s more, it’s not so much the quality as the quantity of disinformation that matters. "The goal is to create so many different – and sometimes even contradictory – versions of what is happening at the border that no one can really distinguish the true from the false anymore."
Reports of a sabotage near Horlivka are a provocation spread by the DPR and Russia.
Via verifying the video metadata, we found out that it had been taken beforehand.
A process of verifying on the Metadata2go resource showed that the video had been created on February 8, 2022. And the militants published it as an evidence of the sabotage on February 18. That is to say, that the provocation has been prepared earlier.
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.
Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance said the State Department's focus on transgender rights is inflaming the conflict with Russia in Ukraine.
Russia has placed as many as 150,000 troops near Ukraine's borders.
Russia has said Ukraine's ties to NATO are a key threat to Russia's national security.
Our ruling
Vance said that Biden risks war with Russia because Putin doesn't "believe in transgender rights."
There is a risk of war, but it is because of Russia's focus on Ukraine's ties to the west and the buildup of Russian forces along Ukraine's border.
The State Department noted the threats against transgender people as one issue among many in a report on human rights. It gave much more space to the danger posed by Russia's military policies in its most recent annual threat assessment.
The risk of war in Ukraine is not affected by Putin's attitude toward transgender rights.
We rate this claim Pants on Fire.
Update: This story has been updated to include a response we received from the Vance campaign shortly after initial publication.
Vladimir Putin's online followers love sharing videos or photos of the Russian president that play up his strongman image. But sometimes in doing so, they share fake and manipulated videos - which then go viral. The Truth or Fake team take a look at two examples.
Two pictures of a white, futuristic building in a forest went briefly viral in early April with the false claim that the building belonged to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On September 20, the official Twitter account of the Permanent Mission of Russia in Geneva published a photo entitled "Modern Ukraine. Human Rights on the Upgrade", showing a building with Ukrainian and Nazi flags.
However, this photo has been "wandering" around the Network under different titles for a long time. Let us recall that it was taken during the shooting of a movie in Kharkiv in 2011.
