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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

An der Ausfahrt aus Kiew hat sich ein riesiger Stau von 25km Länge gebildet - Die Leute fürchten Putins Vergeltung für die Krim-Brücke.

Publisher’s rating: Das kursierende Video ist seit mindestens August 2022 im Umlauf. Es zeigt keinen Stau der vergangenen Tage. Zudem staut es sich in dem Video in Richtung Kiewer Innenstadt - nicht aus der Stadt heraus.

The claim attached to traffic footage said that a 25-kilometre jam was forming on the way out of Kyiv because people feared Russian retaliation after the Crimean Bridge was damaged. The bridge was damaged in the night of 17 July 2023, and Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened military retaliation. The review investigated whether the circulating footage showed people leaving Kyiv in response. It found that the footage was not current: the same video had appeared in posts from August 2022, nearly a year before the bridge incident. To investigate the video’s direction and location, dpa compared details in the footage with publicly accessible map services and checked a road sign against images from another mapping service. The location was identified as the E40 west of Kyiv, toward Zhytomyr, just beyond the city boundary. Roadside features visible in the footage—including woodland, barriers, streetlights and a Shell station—matched that location. The vehicle filming was travelling outward toward Zhytomyr on the open side of the road, while the queue was moving in the opposite direction, toward central Kyiv. Thus the footage did not show a queue of people leaving the city. The review also found earlier posts describing the same jam in August 2022. The Kyiv community portal DTP said it was a queue on the Zhytomyr highway as people tried to pass before curfew; a Telegram post likewise described it as traffic entering Kyiv. DTP later said the old footage was being used to spread false information. The review found no evidence of an actual 25-kilometre outbound jam on the day after the bridge damage, and reported that a Kyiv-based dpa correspondent confirmed this. The circulated video therefore does not substantiate the claim.

dpaWar & conflict

Un porte-parole du département d'État américain estime que la guerre a été un échec stratégique pour l'Ukraine.

Publisher’s rating: Le double lapsus du porte-parole du département d'État américain a été immédiatement corrigé par ce dernier. L'extrait vidéo est sorti de son contexte.

The claim concerns a 27-second clip from a July 10, 2023, briefing in Washington, in which State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller appears to say the war was a strategic failure for Ukraine. The review says the clip was circulated as evidence that he had let slip the Department’s real view. It identifies the clip as an excerpt from Miller’s briefing and says the full briefing was available as both a transcript and video on the State Department’s website. The review’s account of the complete exchange supplies the key context. A journalist first asked whether, after 500 days, Miller would describe the war as a defeat for Russia. Miller answered that the war was “an strategic failure for Ukraine,” then referred to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech in Helsinki. The review says Blinken had described the war as an act of aggression against Ukraine and a strategic failure for Russia. That reference indicates Miller had misspoken in his first answer, rather than intentionally expressing the view attributed to him in the claim. The review also describes what happened after journalists challenged the wording. Miller initially repeated “Ukraine” while apologizing, but, after further questioning, said “a strategic failure for Russia,” referring to Russian losses. Taken together, the preceding question, the Helsinki-speech reference, and Miller’s subsequent clarification support the review’s conclusion that the short clip omits context needed to understand his remarks and does not establish that he intended to call the war a strategic failure for Ukraine.

APA - Austria Presse AgenturWar & conflict

Video zeigt Sticker gegen Ukraine-Unterstützung in Wien

Publisher’s rating: Die Sticker wurden ohne Wissen oder Zustimmung der Inhaber der betroffenen Glasflächen angebracht. Es handelte sich vermutlich um eine orchestrierte aktivistische Aktion.

The video showed anti-Ukraine-support stickers at three locations in Vienna. APA identified the scenes as Stephansplatz, Michaelerplatz and the beginning of Prinz-Eugen-Straße by Schwarzenbergplatz. The images showed cartoon figures appearing to vomit Ukrainian flags beside the words “Wir haben es satt.” The investigation checked the locations against identifiable features in the video and compared them with other views of the sites. [S1] The businesses or property operators connected to the three affected glass surfaces—bookshop facultas, fashion store MCM and Wiener Linien—said they had not put up the stickers. Facultas told APA it found one on July 3 and had informed police; an MCM employee also confirmed the date and said police removed the stickers. Wiener Linien said it knew nothing of the incident, and police could not confirm any callouts or provide information about who put them up. [S1] The evidence therefore supports the article’s conclusion that the stickers were placed without the affected operators’ knowledge or consent, while not identifying who was responsible. APA described an organized activist action as probable, not established. The article also notes that the stickers had already been removed by the time of its on-site visit. [S1]

FACTLYWar & conflict

Press Release issued by the Indigenous Tribal Leader’s Forum (ITLF) on 12 July 2023 apologizing to the Kuki people for misguidance and conflicts with the Meitei people

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a purported 12 July 2023 ITLF press release apologizing to the Kuki people for alleged misguidance and conflict with the Meitei people. The review says the document circulated on social media and that a screenshot of a Times of India article about it was also shared. Its investigation checked the ITLF’s official website and found no apology press release there; instead, it found an ITLF statement addressing a fabricated release attributed to the group. That statement, as described in the review, said the supposed release had been turned into a news story by ANI and then published by the Times of India. ITLF complained that ANI had published without verifying the release or contacting the group, and sought retraction and a public withdrawal. The review reports that ANI subsequently retracted the story and apologized, while the Times of India article had not been retracted at the time covered by the review. The review also reports that Ginza Vualzong, the ITLF spokesperson whose signature appeared on the viral letter, told The Quint that he had not signed it and that it was fake. Taken together, the group’s clarification, the reported absence of the purported apology from its official website, the retraction by ANI, and the spokesperson’s denial support the conclusion that the apology letter was falsely attributed to ITLF.

dpaWar & conflict

Alena Buyx hat im TV-Interview gesagt, dass Streubomben ethisch gerechtfertigt sind.

Publisher’s rating: Es handelt sich um eine Fälschung: Das Bild stammt aus dem Jahr 2020, das Wort «Streubomben» wurde nachträglich eingefügt. Die Ethikrat-Vorsitzende Alena Buyx sprach damals über die Maßnahmen in der Corona-Pandemie.

The viral image attributed the statement “Streubomben sind ‘ethisch gerechtfertigt’” to Alena Buyx in an RTL/ntv Frühstart interview. The dpa investigation identifies the image as a changed version of an interview broadcast on 29 October 2020, when Buyx discussed measures against the spread of coronavirus—not cluster munitions. The review reports that the interview’s original caption read “Maßnahmen sind ‘ethisch gerechtfertigt’.” The decisive comparison is the caption: the circulated image resembles the original interview caption except that “Maßnahmen” (“measures”) was replaced with “Streubomben” (“cluster bombs”). The dpa says the replacement is apparent from the word’s position and typeface, while the lower portion of the image still retains the original wording about measures. This makes the image misleadingly present a pandemic-era interview as a statement about weapons. The review also reports that a spokesperson for the German Ethics Council said Buyx had never said that the use of cluster munitions was ethically justified. It cites the Council’s description of the allegation on Twitter as “üble Nachrede.”

Abrar BhatWar & conflict

Video shows TTP attacking Pakistan Amry vehicle

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review says the video was shared as footage of a recent TTP attack on the Pakistan Army, but identifies the same video in an X post dated October 26, 2022. It concludes the video is old and not from the recent attack.

dpaWar & conflict

Deze beelden tonen het resultaat van de rellen in Frankrijk.

Publisher’s rating: De beelden in de video's van loslopende dieren zijn niet het resultaat van de huidige rellen. Ze zijn allemaal ouder dan de rellen, sommige komen niet uit Frankrijk en sommige tonen niet eens echte dieren.

The claim concerns videos circulated as showing animals roaming free because rioters in France had broken into a zoo and released them. The dpa review says such posts were circulating on Dutch Facebook pages and describes the videos as purported evidence of that story. Its investigation examined several examples rather than treating the videos as proof of a single zoo incident. For one video, shared as showing lions in France the previous week, dpa traced a visible watermark to a YouTube page. The review says the original video had been posted in February 2021 and showed lions at Knowsley Safari Park in north-west England, where visitors can drive among wild animals; vehicle number plates in the footage also indicated Britain, not France. The review reports that other videos were compilations: a pony-and-zebra clip had already been checked by dpa and dated to 2020, while a gorilla shown on a roof was a statue in Valence that had been circulating since February. The review also distinguishes footage that could not be fully authenticated from footage that could be traced elsewhere. It says lions at the beginning of one compilation were reported in an Indian news story as being in Gujarat in February 2023. For clips presented as showing lions in Saint-Denis, the review says their authenticity and location were uncertain, but versions had been found online since 2020. Dpa could not trace the origin of some other footage, including an elephant and a lion at night. The review reports that on 3 July the Paris zoo said its animals were still safe in their enclosures.