Fact check: Putin’s lie about Ukraine war
Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed in Russian rocket attacks since February 24. Still, Vladimir Putin claims his soldiers don't attack civilian targets. The facts show quite the opposite.
Category Attacks on civilians
Read MoreFact check: Putin’s lie about Ukraine war
Undamaged windows are not evidence of staged Ukraine violence
Social media posts claim a photo shows cars damaged by a Russian bomb near a building with intact windows in Bucha, suggesting it proves violence in the Ukrainian town was staged. But there is no evidence of a strike near the building, and residents said military vehicles were used to upend the cars -- accounts confirmed by media reports and other images from the town.
Video of mannequin shows TV drama, not Ukraine ‘faking dead bodies’ in Bucha
Footage of two men handling a mannequin is circulating in social media posts that claim it shows a "prop" passed off as a dead body in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, where dozens of corpses were discovered in April after Russian forces retreated. In fact, the video -- viewed hundreds of thousands of times -- was not filmed in Bucha. It was recorded for a Russian TV drama in Vsevolozhsk near Saint Petersburg on March 20, 2022.
Video claiming ‘Ukraine responsible for train station attack’ was not produced by BBC
A video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in social media posts that claim it is a report from the BBC that states Ukraine was responsible for a deadly missile attack on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. The British broadcaster's press team said it did not produce the "fake" video and was "taking action" to get it removed from social media. AFP identified various visual features in the video that indicated it has been fabricated to imitate a report from the BBC.
No, Putin didn’t free 35,000 children from Ukraine
This unfounded claim originated on a website known for publishing misinformation.
Putin has freed 35,000 children in Ukraine, a country he's invaded, or anywhere else. There are no credible sources nor news reports to support this.
Searching for evidence that Putin saved thousands of children, we only found articles reporting that Russian police jailed several children for leaving flowers at Ukraine's embassy in Moscow.
We rate this post Pants on Fire!
No evidence that Ukraine attacked a train station in one of its cities
There's no credible evidence that Ukraine was behind the April 8 attack at the Kramatorsk train station. A video used to bolster this claim is fake ' it did not come from the BBC.
The claim has largely been spread by pro-Kremlin accounts following reports of civilian casualties and contradict earlier Russian posts that initially took credit for the bombing.
The Tochka-U missile used in the attack, and the serial number on it, isn't proof that it came from the Ukrainian army. Several news reports, legitimate photos and videos show that Russia has used these missile systems recently.
Our ruling
Facebook posts claim that Ukraine was responsible for the Kramatorsk train station bombing.
A video used to bolster this rumor is fake. Although the video has a BBC logo, it was not produced by the news organization.
There's no credible evidence that Ukraine was behind the attack.
The Tochka missile used in the attack, and the serial number on it, isn't proof that it came from the Ukrainian army. Several news reports, legitimate photos and videos show that Russia has used these missile systems recently. The rumors that Ukraine attacked the train station have largely been spread by pro-Kremlin social media accounts.
We rate this claim False.
Disinformation: Russia presented specific evidence to the UN on crimes committed by the Ukrainian authorities against their own citizens in Bucha
Therefore, the Kremlin’s claim that they presented a set of evidence to the UN which proves Ukraine’s crimes in Bucha is fake. That which the Russian Ambassador presented at a special press conference and the UN Security Council are impossible to be considered as “evidence.” Most of them are easily verifiable false claims and the rest is absurd allegations which are not considered as evidence in any format.
Massacre in Bucha: refuting Russian propaganda fakes
Bodies everywhere: on the roads, on the side of the road, and in makeshift mass graves. That's how you can describe photos and videos from the Ukrainian town of Bucha, located very close to Kyiv. The images were seen by people around the world and shocked many. Russia, which was in control of the town, is trying to prove that its troops had nothing to do with it. They use the usual disinformation tactics: they launch several false theses at once in order to confuse everyone as much as possible.
Euroradio refutes Russian propagandists' fakes about the massacre in Bucha.
Pro-Russian Facebook Accounts Use the Video of the National Police of Ukraine to Deny the Bucha Massacre | mythdetector.ge
The aforementioned posts voiced the assertion that no corpses can be found in the video published by the National Police of Ukraine.
In fact, two bodies do appear in the selected shots of the video. [...]
Notably, the account “Find the truth” does not publish the full version of the video. In the post, the scene showing the first body has been cropped out.
No, Tucker Carlson didn’t say this about Ukraine staging dead bodies
Some people have interpreted a tweet about Tucker Carlson and Ukraine to mean that he suggested the country staged dead bodies. But he didn't say that.
Russia has said without evidence that "fake dead bodies" were "staged" in Bucha after its troops left the town. Carlson, meanwhile, has been criticized for echoing Russian talking points. On March 9, for example, Carlson said a Russian claim that Ukraine has bioweapon labs was "totally and completely true," but there's no evidence that's the case, PolitiFact reported.
But this talking point, about staged bodies, wasn't one Carlson made.
We rate claims that he said the words that appeared in Wash's tweet False.
