Category War crimes

These images from Bucha do not show ‘fake corpses’ staged by the Ukrainian army

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.Â Since then, several Russian media outlets and pro-Russian social media accounts have published a video that claimsÂ to show evidence the corpses in this video were staged. The FRANCE 24 Observers team analysed its claims.

Russia pushes false crisis actor claims about video from Bucha, Ukraine

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.

Fake: US Calls Bucha Atrocities “Ukrainian Propaganda”ï¿¼

Jim Jatras cannot be called a useful idiot because he is seemingly an intelligent man with not an insignificant career behind him as a policy adviser and lobbyist. This former State Department employee is today a Russian propaganda mouthpiece, who along with other so-called "experts", appears constantly on RT and Sputnik. Jatras dutifully echoes Kremlin disinformation narratives, and he most certainly does not represent "the position of the United States" as Kremlin English language mouthpieces RT and Sputnik claim. The crimes that Russian troops committed in the towns and cities around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv have been documented not only by Ukrainian authorities, but also by international media and human rights organizations.

April 4, 2022
Bucha Context Fact checks / debunkings Faked news reports Genocide Methods Russia Russian propaganda Ukraine War crimes

Fake: Mass Civilian Casualties in Kyiv Region Staged

There is no doubt that Ukraine's peaceful civilian population was subjected to extreme violence and brutality by the Russian military. Numerous local residents' testimonies from Kyiv area towns that have been under Russian military occupation for a month confirm this. Some of them have already been documented by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch.

April 3, 2022
Fact checks / debunkings Faked news reports Methods Russia Ukraine War crimes

Footage has circulated online since 2010 in posts about US and Iraqi forces retaking Iraqi shrine

After Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine, a video was viewed millions of times in multiple Facebook posts that claimed it shows fighting between soldiers from the two countries. In fact, the video has circulated online since 2010. A visual analysis of the clip found it corresponds with a raid by American and Iraqi troops on a shrine in Iraq in 2004.

Fake: Ukrainian Authorities Doom Population to Starvation

The spring planting season in Ukraine is in jeopardy not because of the Ukrainian authorities, but because of the Russian Federation, which on February 24 unleashed a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian farmers were forced to start the spring planting campaign with bullets and missiles flying above them, regions where the war is raging are unable to sow wheat, extra hands needed for spring wheat planting are busy defending Ukraine and fuel shortages plague the entire process throughout the country. Nevertheless the spring planting campaign is underway in 20 farming regions in Ukraine.

March 31, 2022
Fact checks / debunkings Faked news reports Genocide Methods Russia Ukraine War crimes

Fake: 6-Year-Old Russian Child Beaten by Ukrainians

The Dutch Police told StopFake that no such incident had actually taken place. There is also no information about such an incident on any local media.

March 28, 2022
Attacks on civilians Fact checks / debunkings Faked news reports Methods Russia Ukraine War crimes

Clip of man in body bag smoking is from the set of a music video, not ‘staged’ deaths in Ukraine

A TikTok video of a man smoking a cigarette in what appears to be a truck full of body bags has been viewed thousands of times in Facebook posts suggesting that deaths are being staged in the war in Ukraine. The claim is false; the clip shows the behind-the-scenes making of a music video for a song released by Russian rapper Husky in September 2020.

Video Shows Climate Protest in Austria, Not ‘Crisis Actors’ in Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a barrage of false claims on social media, including posts that purport to show a video of “crisis actors” portraying dead victims of the fighting. The video used in the posts is from a climate protest held in Vienna, Austria, weeks before the war in Ukraine began.

One America News runs conspiratorial segment claiming strike on Mariupol hospital was US false flag

The aftermath of the attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, was captured on video and in photos showing that it was an actual attack.

A Pentagon spokesperson called OAN host Pearson Sharp's claims "ridiculous." Several independent experts who spoke to PolitiFact agreed that it was completely without merit. Russian officials have conceded the attack occurred.

Our ruling
Sharp said the attack on the Mariupol hospital had "the makings of yet another false flag operation" by the U.S.

There is no evidence that the attack was staged or a false flag carried out by the U.S. Its aftermath was documented by workers, witnesses and journalists on the ground.

We rate OAN's claim Pants on Fire!