Many media users, and even former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, shared videos and photos apparently showing the "Ghost of Kyiv." Most turned out to be fake.Įspecially odd was a manipulated photo of the supposed Ukrainian pilot that was in fact an Argentinian lawyer based in Buenos Aires. Among these, stories of the so-called "Ghost of Kyiv" - a mysterious fighter who supposedly destroyed 40 Russian jets singlehandedly - became increasingly popular. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video No, the 'Ghost of Kyiv' was not an exceptional Ukrainian fighter pilotĪfter Ukrainians got over the initial shock of the Russian invasion, they sought comfort in reports of Ukrainian military successes. The steadfast denial of supposed war crimes and labeling of evidence as fake has become a proven strategy in Russia's war on Ukraine.įact-check: What really happened in Bucha? These images clearly refuted Russian claims that the bodies only began appearing after its troops had abandoned the city on March 30. Moreover, research by the New York Times found that satellite imagery from the US company Maxar showed that bodies had been littering the streets of Bucha since March 19, and in some cases were even seen as early as March 11. Independent digital forensics experts were also able to confirm this. Russia countered with its own accusation, claiming that videos from Bucha were a "staged propaganda production." An accompanying narrative soon appeared on social media, with claims that the victims were in fact actors, and one video purported to prove that some could be seen moving.īut a DW high-resolution image analysis of the video supposedly showing "living corpses" found that the impression of a body moving its hand was caused by a raindrop on the window of the moving vehicle from which the footage was shot. Ukrainian authorities spoke of a "deliberate massacre" carried out by Russian soldiers. Hundreds of dead bodies lay strewn across the streets of the city in late March after Russian forces withdrew. Images of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, near Kyiv, horrified the world in early April. No, there were no 'living corpses' in Bucha Here are 10 of the most blatant and unusual. But our team also got to the bottom of other odd stories on topics related to health, sports and the environment. So it is no wonder that DW's fact-checking team spent most of its energy in 2022 dealing with false claims surrounding the war in Ukraine. Beyond that, NewsGuard, a US journalism and technology outfit that has been fighting disinformation for years, identified 311 websites publishing pro-Russian disinformation to justify Moscow's war of aggression against its neighbor. Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, was followed by an information war - replete with a large-scale disinformation campaign, targeted propaganda and conspiracy theories, especially on social media.
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