Small fake news stories Ukraine/Russia conflict

[deirdre]

This thread is NOT a discussion thread.

This thread is for short-quick debunking/explaining minor fake or mistaken news that has been spread.
Larger debunks (like for the "ghost of kyiv" should have their own thread ie: it contains multiple bunk, like footage from video game And then later photo of pilot from 2019 etc)


If members want to ruminate on any of the examples in this thread, please start a new thread... I'm hoping this thread can just be used by outside readers to QUICKLY scan for self-contained debunks. If you feel your new thread discussion on any of these should be linked to the original debunk/explanation in this thread please ask moderators to add your link to the original comment.




ex: outright fake photos or footage
Newsmax posted and has since removed a photo claiming "The current devastation in Ukraine" when it is actually from 2015

Article:

An elderly woman wipes away tears as she stands in front of a damaged house in Nikishyne, southeast of Debaltseve, in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine on March 11.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-to-send-more-ukraine-nonlethal-aid/26894507.html

or ex: probable mistakes

Article:

Editor's note: Since the publication of this story, reports have emerged that the 13 Ukrainians were captured, not killed. On Saturday, the Ukrainian Border Patrol Agency said that it had "received hope that all of Zmiiny's defenders are alive." Russian state-controlled media reported the island's defenders had surrendered. The Ukrainians said they sent a ship to investigate the island on Saturday but added it was captured by the Russians. Monday, the Ukrainian Navy announced that it was "very happy to learn that our brothers are alive and well" and described them as having been captured by the Russians.

Original story
....
Late on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said that the island's infrastructure was destroyed and all contact with the defenders was lost. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an update after the first day of fighting, said all of the island's defenders were killed. He added that he was conferring the title "Hero of Ukraine" -- the nation's highest honor -- on all the defenders of the island.

In all, Zelensky said the defenders were among the at least 137 Ukrainians who were killed in the first day's fighting.

Source: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/02/25/go-f-k-yourself-defiant-last-stand-of-ukraines-snake-island-defenders.html

 

[Rory]

8 quick debunks of fake stories and disputed photos/videos on the BBC here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/60554910

- missile-surviving woman not crisis actor or Russain gas blast survivor
- young girl confronting soldier is not Ukrainian actually Palestinian
- Kiev Molotov cocktail fight shared by two UK MPs actually from 2014
- downed Russian jet actually from video game
- Ukrainian kids waving at troops actually from 2016 (and probably staged)
- photo of Vitali Klitschko at training centre in 2021, not front line in 2022
- photo of President Zelensky drinking coffee/tea with solidiers from just before invasion, not after
- fake Zelensky Telegram account urged surrender

 

[Rory]

that isnt helpful to search engines. or thread scanners.

edited

 

[Agent K]

This was a big story, now debunked. Does it need its own thread?

Article:

The defiant soldiers of Snake Island are actually 'alive and well,' says Ukraine's navy​

By Sebastian Shukla and Lianne Kolirin, CNN
Updated 3:06 PM ET, Mon February 28, 2022

The Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island -- who were all feared dead after their defiant response to threats from a Russian warship -- are actually "alive and well," according to the Ukrainian Navy.
All of the soldiers on the tiny island in the Black Sea were thought to have been killed in an attack on the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last Thursday.
According to a purported audio exchange, one of the Ukrainian troops had responded to a warning from an approaching Russian vessel to lay down their weapons or face bombing by saying, "Russian warship, go f*** yourself."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said later on Thursday that 13 soldiers on Snake Island all died "heroically" by Russian bombardment. But -- after the Ukrainian border guard said that it had information disputing the deaths -- a statement on Monday from the country's navy suggested this was certainly not the case.

According to the navy the soldiers on the island repelled two attacks by Russian forces but in the end were forced to surrender "due to the lack of ammunition."
The statement added that Russian attackers have completely destroyed the island's infrastructure, including lighthouses, towers and antennas.
Russian state media also showed the arrival of the Ukrainian soldiers in Sevastopol, Crimea where they are being held.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/europe/snake-island-ukraine-russia-survivors-alive-intl/index.html

 

[Mauro]

This was a big story, now debunked. Does it need its own thread?

Article:

The defiant soldiers of Snake Island are actually 'alive and well,' says Ukraine's navy​

By Sebastian Shukla and Lianne Kolirin, CNN
Updated 3:06 PM ET, Mon February 28, 2022

The Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island -- who were all feared dead after their defiant response to threats from a Russian warship -- are actually "alive and well," according to the Ukrainian Navy.
All of the soldiers on the tiny island in the Black Sea were thought to have been killed in an attack on the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last Thursday.
According to a purported audio exchange, one of the Ukrainian troops had responded to a warning from an approaching Russian vessel to lay down their weapons or face bombing by saying, "Russian warship, go f*** yourself."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said later on Thursday that 13 soldiers on Snake Island all died "heroically" by Russian bombardment. But -- after the Ukrainian border guard said that it had information disputing the deaths -- a statement on Monday from the country's navy suggested this was certainly not the case.

According to the navy the soldiers on the island repelled two attacks by Russian forces but in the end were forced to surrender "due to the lack of ammunition."
The statement added that Russian attackers have completely destroyed the island's infrastructure, including lighthouses, towers and antennas.
Russian state media also showed the arrival of the Ukrainian soldiers in Sevastopol, Crimea where they are being held.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/europe/snake-island-ukraine-russia-survivors-alive-intl/index.html

I hope everybody is glad the death of 13 people has been debunked. What has not been dubunked is that they had the guts to send the Russian fleet to f***k off. They are heroes even if they didn't die.

 

[deirdre]

A few people seem to thinking this is the Statue of Liberty in New York. It is not, it is a very small replica in France (the real statue you can stand inside her crown).

Article:

When we searched with relevant keywords, we found several news articles reporting this news of Colmar’s Statue of Liberty draped in the Ukrainian flag. They can be seen here and here. These news articles reported that the copper-green resin replica of the Statue of Liberty in French Colmar was draped in Ukraine’s National Flag to show its support for Ukraine.

Source: https://factly.in/picture-of-statue-of-liberty-replica-in-france-shared-as-new-yorks-statue-of-liberty-draped-in-a-ukrainian-flag/

It is also on the Ukraine National Guard twittr, but they don't claim it is from New York.

ex: facebook

 

[Mendel]

Colmar's Statue of Liberty

It's on the center of a roundabout outside the Colmar airport.

Article:

This statue made of resin is a 12-meter [40 ft.] high replica of the Statue of Liberty. It was sculpted to commemorate the 100th death anniversary of the sculptor Auguste Batholdi, who was born in Colmar and created the "Liberty lightening the world".

Source: https://www.tourisme-colmar.com/en/visit/presentation/architectural-heritage/patrimoine-architectural/F235008850_statue-of-liberty-colmar

Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/villecolmar/status/1498342189792997376

 

[Agent K]

A viral post on Reddit was debunked and flagged as a Misleading Post.

"The Russian rocket artillery soldier that went viral has been captured by Ukrainian forces."
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/t5ahv2/the_russian_rocket_artillery_soldier_that_went/

"IMPORTANT: This post is misleading, the two persons are not the same, the russian soldier is still ok and posting on social media."

In this video, the soldier mocks claims that he was captured.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CimeoxS5GYY

By the way, in the original video, the sign on his chest says, "They'll croak, and we (go) to heaven!" paraphrasing something Putin said in 2018.

Article:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia was ready to "annihilate" any attacker who would use nuclear weapons against it, but would never strike first.
"An aggressor should know that vengeance is inevitable, that he will be annihilated, and we would be the victims of the aggression. We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will just drop dead. They will not even have time to repent for this," he said.

Source: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2018/10/19/aggressors-will-be-annihilated-we-will-go-to-heaven-as-martyrs-putin-says-a63235

And the skull patch on his shoulder in the second video reminds me of the Mitchell and Webb sketch.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

 

[deirdre]

In this video, the soldier mocks claims that he was captured.

for those wondering how the soldier grew a full red beard in one day... you need to scroll to the end of the video

I did check dates, and the youtube video was uploaded after the reddit video. Youtube translation software is real iffy though, sort of sounds like he is saying his friend wasnt "capture"d.

 

[Agent K]

for those wondering how the soldier grew a full red beard in one day... you need to scroll to the end of the video

I did check dates, and the youtube video was uploaded after the reddit video. Youtube translation software is real iffy though, sort of sounds like he is saying his friend wasnt "capture"d.

They joked that he was captured by the bearded guy's YouTube channel, project WarGonzo: "Popal v plen proekta WarGonza." At the end, the soldier says, "Slava Rossii," (Glory to Russia), perhaps mocking the "Slava Ukrayini" salute.

 

[Rory]

The WarGonzo channel posted another video a few hours ago, a tribute to a killed comrade (presumably true this time).

5000+ comments and all the ones I saw were very pro-Russia and supportive of "fighting the good fight".

I guess the media is really doing its job over there.

 

[FatPhil]

BBC seems to be doing a reasonable job at bashing some things on the head even before the loonies I alas share some online fora with get a chance to parrot them like the useful idiots that they are. Today's round - a bunch of viral tweets that apparently provide evidence that the war in Ukraine is a hoax:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60589965

* A video of a young woman and a young man having fake blood applied to their faces ...
= shot in 2020 on the production set of Ukrainian TV series Contamin.

* body bags starts moving
= a climate change protest in Vienna in early February

* Ukrainian men holding what appear to be wooden guns
= taken during a training course provided by the far-right Azov battalion for civilian volunteers

* A false tweet - seemingly sent by CNN's verified Twitter account - claims US actor Steven Seagal has been spotted "among Russian special forces"
= CNN said the image was fabricated and it had "never reported anything like this".

* Russian diplomat tweets that CNN had reported on the death of "Bernie Gores" in Ukraine, after sharing a story about the same man's demise in Afghanistan
= Fake account. A CNN representative told fact-checkers from Reuters the posts were "absolute fiction".

* video of a large crowd being asked by a director to run and scream in fear
= shot in Birmingham's Victoria Square in 2013 for the sci-fi film Invasion Planet Earth

* wife of a 'Ukrainian vice-president' who has joined the country's armed forces
= Ukraine does not have a vice-president.

Note: claims/rebuttals have been copy-paste from the Beeb, but have been massively chopped for brevity

I'll now get back to my Pink Floyd... Look mummy, there's a military helicopter up in the sky. (High quality DSLR zoomed photographs can be supplied to support this claim.)

 

[Rory]

* A false tweet - seemingly sent by CNN's verified Twitter account - claims US actor Steven Seagal has been spotted "among Russian special forces"
= CNN said the image was fabricated and it had "never reported anything like this"

 

[JMartJr]

Here's a silly one that seems to have legs in the more credulous parts of the Internet:

Apparently the US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is secretly a demon monster lizardperson alien, and let her disguise slip at a Security Council vote in discussions aimed at preventing the Russian invasion. This is based on a screen grab from an NBC news broadcast:


Rather creepy pareidolia has people seeing something like this:


This is all supposed to mean something about the US and other supporters of Ukraine being evil, or something.

Usually, this sort of "lizerdperson disguise slipping" is based on P-frames in video compression and the like,but this one is just a bad image grab that looks a bit strange, with the person's actual face a bit obscured so the brain invents a new face to go on top of the body, where it expects to see a face. Other angles of same debate give some clues to decipher what is going on:
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield is wearing a black mask, and in sufficiently poor images it blends into her dark skin tone. Her hair has waves, along with streaks and highlights that form the bulbous eyes of the "demon." She is looking down and slightly to here left in the screen grab from the news, her right eye forms the mouth. The final touch is the little crown, formed by a "RESERVED" sign on a chair behind here, partially covered by a jacket draped on the chair. A similar sign, with no jacket over it, is seen behind the UK Ambassador to her right.

This image that was posted anonymously on 4chan is not my work, but captures what's happening very nicely.


Yes, this is all a bit silly. But we live in a time when a guy with a rifle went up to liberate children from the basement of a pizza place that supposedly was full of kidnapped children being abused... might have been worthwhile to point out that the place did not have a basement! Discrediting even very stupid stuff early and often seems a Good Thing.

 

[Rory]

That is hilariously crazy!

And quite remarkable that it happened twice (the demon lizard images above are two different angles and shots).

On a related note, I was just reading about John Carpenter's 'They Live' the other day and realising how many parallels there were between aspects of that film and current conspiracy theories. Which raises the question: which came first?

 

[Rory]

The news report the first image features in:

Source: https://youtu.be/E9H_XxG9Qo4?t=458

For the second one I just looked at it again and saw her as totally normal this time - was a very peculiar moment - and it actually took some effort to bring the pareidolia back.

 

[deirdre]

That is hilariously crazy!

And quite remarkable that it happened twice (the demon lizard images above are two different angles and shots).

On a related note, I was just reading about John Carpenter's 'They Live' the other day and realising how many parallels there were between aspects of that film and current conspiracy theories. Which raises the question: which came first?

can we try to refrain from cluttering up this thread with unnecessary chit chat? (or @Agent K silly off topic youtube videos)

 

[JMartJr]

can we try to refrain from cluttering up this thread with unnecessary chit chat? (or @Agent K silly off topic youtube videos)

If you are referring to the John Carpenter "They Live" reference, it may not be as off topic as you'd expect/hope.
Memes built from images of the ambassador and images from the movie are already being used by folks pushing this nonsense:


(For anybody who does not know the movie, horrible monsters live among us, and look just like normal folks unless you have the special glasses that reveal them for what they are.)
And with that, I'm out on this topic, as it seems sufficiently debunked for my purposes.

 

[Mendel]

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/gzfBF9S

 

[Agent K]

This story relates to the Ukrainian Nazi narrative.

Article:

Ukrainian rabbi denies reports they left Ukraine because of antisemitism​

Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm claims: "The Jews of Ukraine are leaving solely because of the war."

By ZVIKA KLEIN
Updated: MARCH 9, 2022

Ukrainian rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm of Zhytomyr says that reports in the Israeli media claiming that Jews of his city ran away because of antisemitism are false.

"Hundreds of Jewish families in Ukraine were forced to flee their homes – not due to the Russian invasion, but because of Ukrainians looting their properties and physically attacking them," Hebrew-language news site 0404 reported Sunday - which was picked up by English speaking media outlets. The NGO Lev Layeled (Heart for the Child) told 0404 that Jews in the town of Zhytomyr were threatened, harassed and physically beaten by locals looking to take advantage of the chaos caused by the war between Ukraine and Russia. “On Thursday, the Ukrainians who worked at the orphanage began looting and beating the local Jews,” Lev Layeled said in a statement, according to the report. “The Ukrainian authorities called Chabad and told them they needed to [flee] urgently in order to save their lives.”

Wilhelm spoke to the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday and denied the report. "This is a complete, utter lie; there were no beatings and nothing of the sort. The only reason we left is this damn war: because of the sirens and missiles that fell nearby. There is no other reason for us to leave Ukraine."

Wilhelm, who is now in Israel, asked to thank all Israelis and Jews around the world for helping them: "Thank you to all the people of Israel for all the reinforcements and prayers."

Source: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-700748