Images published on April 3 showed the bodies of more than a dozen civilians who had been killed in Bucha, a town near Kyiv that had been occupied by the Russian army. Some of the bodies had their hands tied and some were shot in the head. Since then, several Russian media outlets and pro-Russian social media accounts have published a video that claims to show evidence the corpses in this video were staged. The FRANCE 24 Observers team analysed its claims.
The Russian Ministry of Defense and other top Russian officials claimed that a video of a car driving through Ukraine showed two crisis actors playing the role of dead Ukrainians in a staged massacre. On Telegram and Twitter, they claimed that the video showed one person moving their arm, and another person seen in the car's mirror sitting up.
The video does not show a person raising an arm as the car drives by; it shows a mark floating across the car's windshield ' perhaps a drop of water or a speck of dirt.
The video does not show someone sitting up after the car drives by; it shows a stationary corpse through the lens of the car's passenger-side mirror, which has distorting effects.
Our ruling
The Russian Ministry of Defense said a video taken from a car driving through Bucha, Ukraine, shows a corpse "moving his arm," and then "in the rear view mirror the 'corpse' sits down."
Both claims misrepresent what the video in question shows.
The video shows a mark floating across the car's windshield ' perhaps a drop of water or a speck of dirt ' which Russia officials falsely portrayed as of a corpse "moving his arm."
Similarly, what Russian officials falsely claimed was a corpse sitting up was actually a dead person whose body appeared distorted due to the shape of the car's passenger-side mirror.
We rate this claim False.
Social media users have been circulating two photos showing a Ukrainian airplane that they say smacked into a street sign because it was flying low to avoid Russian radar. In reality, this incident happened during a training exercise back in August 2020 and has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia’s talk of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine is a non-starter in peace negotiations. We’ll explain what these claims are all about and why experts say they are misleading.
A recent Facebook post falsely claims that CNN footage from the war in Ukraine was faked, citing a firefighter’s jacket bearing the name of a Canadian city. But the footage was shot in Ukraine. The jacket was donated by a Canadian organization.
There is no evidence Putin beheaded 12 bioweapon engineers in Ukraine.
This claim comes from Real Raw News, a blog that has shown a pattern of fabricating news about politicians being executed or arrested by the military.
Though the story claims Putin told former President Donald Trump about the alleged beheading, a spokesperson for Trump said the account is baseless.
An email was sent on March 7 instructing some U.N. staff members not to use the words "war" or "invasion" when discussing the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The message came from a regional office without clearance and is not considered official U.N. policy, organization officials told PolitiFact. U.N. leaders including Secretary General António Guterres and Rosemary DiCarlo, the organization's under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, used the words in tweets before and after the email was sent.
Our ruling
A Facebook post claims that the U.N. sent an email instructing staff not to use the words "invasion" or "war" when referring to Ukraine.
The email is real and instructed some U.N. staff members not to use the terms. But it came from a regional U.N. office and officials say that it did not reflect the organization's official policy. Top U.N. leaders have used the words on social media before and around the time the email was sent.
For a statement that's partially accurate but leaves out important details, we rate this Half True.
A Canadian charity has for years donated firefighter gear to Ukrainians. A jacket bearing the name of the city Edmonton that appeared in live CNN coverage in Ukraine came from the group, the charity said.
An April 2019 Instagram post from the group shows piles of jackets bound for Ukraine. A 2018 post says: "Sharing more gear outside Lviv." The second photo in this post shows someone holding up a jacket that says "Edmonton" that resembles the one that appears in the CNN broadcast.
We rate claims that this jacket is evidence that CNN staged the scene, or that Lemon isn't in Ukraine, False.
An Iron Cross visible on some of Zelenskyy's military green T-shirts is not a Nazi symbol. It represents the official emblem of Ukraine's armed forces and includes the country's coat of arms in the center.
The Iron Cross is a commonly used, famous German military medal. It's not a hate symbol on its own. It was turned into a Nazi symbol when the regime superimposed a swastika in the center.
Our ruling
Social media posts claim that a Nazi symbol can be seen on Zelenskyy's T-shirts.
This is wrong. The symbol visible on Zelenskyy's shirt is the official emblem of Ukraine's military and doesn't represent a Nazi Iron Cross.
We rate the claim False.