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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

War & conflict fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about war & conflict. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

5,837 published reviews in this topic

dpaWar & conflict

Les soldats allemands en Ukraine.

Publisher’s rating: Non, les photos partagées sur Facebook ne montrent pas de soldats allemands en Ukraine. Et l'affirmation selon laquelle le ministère allemand de la Défense a confirmé la perte de quatre soldats allemands dans ce pays est fausse. Le ministère conteste cette affirmation, qui n'est d'ailleurs étayée par aucune preuve.

The post used a Facebook caption claiming “German soldiers in Ukraine,” with photos and a television report, to suggest Germany had sent troops there and that four German soldiers had been killed. The review distinguishes the actual LCI report from the impression created by the post: it says the report explained why the claim was false, while the Facebook post placed it between photos that supplied a misleading context. The original review describes the claim as one circulated by Jean-Yves Le Gallou, who alleged that Germany’s Defence Ministry had acknowledged the loss of a four-person German crew in a Leopard tank near the front. The review checked the photos’ provenance and timing. Metadata for the upper image placed it on 26 June 2018, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The photographer’s Tank-Masters.de site showed other images of the same scene and identified the vehicle as a Puma belonging to the 122nd Armoured Infantry Battalion, stationed in Oberviechtach, with the photographs taken at the Grafenwöhr training area. The lower image was an AFP photograph of Ukrainian soldiers training on tanks in Munster, Germany—not masked German soldiers in Ukraine. On the alleged deaths, the review reports that a German Defence Ministry spokesperson told dpa no German military personnel were deployed in Ukraine, and notes that Parliament had approved no mandate for such a mission. It also describes the LCI report’s account of the Russian claim that a German tank had been destroyed: the report said the tank’s identity was disputed and that open hatches indicated its occupants had left before its destruction. The review says no evidence supported the assertion that four German soldiers had been killed.