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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.

5,847 published reviews in this topic

dpa-factcheckingWar & conflict

Die Fotos sind neu und zeigen die Ausbildung von Kindersoldaten durch das ukrainische nationalistische Asow-Regiment.

Publisher’s rating: Die Fotos sind mehrere Jahre alt und haben nichts mit dem aktuellen Einmarsch Russlands in die Ukraine zu tun. Sie zeigen aber ein paramilitärisches Ferienlager für Kinder und Jugendliche, das von Asow organisiert wurde. Dabei handelt es sich um ein von ukrainischen Nationalisten dominiertes Regiment. Die Existenz einzelner extremistischer Gruppierungen in der Ukraine wird von Russland immer wieder als Vorwand für seinen Einmarsch genutzt.

The post described in the review circulated nine images of children in military-style clothing, some handling weapons or imitations, and claimed they showed Ukrainian child soldiers being trained by the Azov Regiment. The review investigated the age and origin of those specific images, rather than treating their appearance as proof that they documented current military training. It reports that none was recent or connected to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. The images instead relate to several years of Azov-organized paramilitary summer camps for children and teenagers. The review traced the images through different records. The first and third were Associated Press photographs taken outside Kyiv in July 2017; the sixth appeared in the European Pressphoto Agency’s archive as a photograph from August 12, 2015, on Kyiv’s outskirts. Other images were found in older material: one appeared in a Russian-language article from August 2015, another had a TinEye earliest match from that month, and a seventh had been posted on VK in April 2016. The sources therefore support the conclusion that the photos are old, while also showing that the camp setting was real. The review does not establish that the children in these pictures were child soldiers in the sense alleged by the post, or that they were being prepared to fight in the 2022 invasion. It describes camp activities including military instruction, self-defense, survival skills and sports, and notes that an Azov-associated page said children were taught weapons handling and first aid. It also distinguishes the camp evidence from the broader, documented presence of extremist and nationalist elements in parts of the Azov movement. That context does not make the photos new or establish the post’s claimed connection to the invasion.

FACTLYWar & conflict

బంగ్లాదేశ్ విభజన సమయంలో దొరికిన 90,000 పాకిస్థాన్ యుద్ధ ఖైదీలను విడిచి పెట్టిన ఇందిరా గాంధీ ప్రభుత్వం, పాకిస్థాన్‌లో బందీలుగా ఉన్న 3,000 భారత యుద్ధ ఖైదీలను మాత్రం విడిపించలేదు

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

dpaWar & conflict

Während in der Regierungszeit von US-Präsident Barack Obama alle 20 Minuten eine Bombe fiel, ließ Nachfolger Donald Trump nie Bomben abwerfen.

Publisher’s rating: Das Sharepic macht falsche Angaben. Auch unter Donald Trump haben die USA bewaffnete Konflikte geführt und noch einmal stärker als unter Obama bewaffnete Drohnen eingesetzt. Die Angabe über die Bombenabwürfe unter der Regierung Obamas ist ungenau.

The review examines a Facebook graphic contrasting Barack Obama’s and Donald Trump’s records. It attributes to Obama the claim that he “dropped bombs every 20 minutes” throughout eight years in office, while asserting that Trump “never dropped bombs.” The article says the graphic provides no source for the Obama figure and that it appears to misapply a statistic for a single year to the president’s entire two terms. [S1: “Über Obama heißt es im Sharepic, er habe während seiner acht Jahre als US-Präsident «alle 20 Minuten» Bomben abwerfen lassen. Eine Quelle wird für diese Zahl jedoch nicht genannt.”] The review challenges the assertion about Trump by pointing to US involvement in armed conflicts that continued during his presidency. It notes that the United States fought in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 and that airstrikes continued there during Trump’s term, with reports of civilian casualties in November 2018 and March 2019. It also describes Trump’s order to kill Iranian commander Ghassem Soleimani in Baghdad by drone strike around the turn of 2019–2020. [S1: “Das prominenteste Beispiel ist der Krieg in Afghanistan, wo US-Soldaten von 2001 bis 2021 kämpften.”; “In der Amtszeit von Donald Trump gab es dabei mehrfach Berichte über zivile Opfer, etwa im November 2018 und im März 2019.”; “Zum Jahreswechsel 2019/2020 befahl Trump nach Angriffen auf die US-Botschaft im Irak die Tötung des iranischen Kommandeurs Ghassem Soleimani per Drohnenangriff in Bagdad.”] For the Obama statistic, the article cites a Council on Foreign Relations analysis: it counted 26,171 bombs or comparable weapons used by the United States in 2016, a total that works out to approximately one every 20 minutes. The review stresses that this figure concerns 2016 alone, not Obama’s full eight-year presidency. It also explains that the comparison omits Trump-era drone strikes: investigative journalists’ estimates described an expansion of those programs under Trump in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. [S1: “Einer Auswertung des Thinktanks «Council on Foreign Relations» zufolge setzten die USA in diesem Zeitraum 26 171 Bomben oder vergleichbare Waffen ein - zumeist mittels Kampfdrohnen.”; “Sie bezieht sich jedoch nicht auf Obamas gesamte achtjährige Amtszeit.”; “Erhebungen von Investigativjournalisten zufolge wurden solche Programme unter Trump stark ausgebaut - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, dem Jemen und im Kampf gegen die Terrormiliz Al-Shabaab in Somalia.”]

dpaWar & conflict

Deze video toont dat er een groot aantal farmabedrijven in Kiev is; de reden dat Rusland Oekraïne is binnengevallen.

Publisher’s rating: De aanwezigheid van deze bedrijven in Kiev is niet uitzonderlijk. De meeste van deze bedrijven hebben overal ter wereld kantoren, ook in Rusland. Het is dan ook onzinnig om te stellen dat de invasie van Rusland in Oekraïne iets met deze bedrijven te maken zou hebben.

The video showed Glassdoor pages for pharmaceutical and biotech companies located in Kyiv and suggested that the city was an exceptional “Big Pharma” centre—and that this explained Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Dpa checked whether the search results shown in the video could be reproduced. Its own Glassdoor search for biotech and pharmaceutical companies in Kyiv returned 40 results; the video displayed 35, although the visible result count rose from 37 to 38 during the clip. The results therefore did not establish the extraordinary concentration implied by the video. The review also examined where the companies were headquartered and whether they had offices elsewhere. It found that only two companies in the video had headquarters in Ukraine: Arterium in Kyiv and Farmak JSC in Brovary. The other companies had headquarters in a range of countries, and many were multinationals with offices in multiple locations. Dpa reported that 22 of the 35 companies shown had at least one office in Russia. Comparisons using the same Glassdoor search method further challenged the suggestion that Kyiv’s results were exceptional: the search returned 66 companies in Moscow, 102 in Brussels and 98 in Amsterdam, compared with 40 in Kyiv. These searches describe Glassdoor listings, not a census of every company or office. The evidence in the review undermines the video’s inference from search results to an unusual concentration in Kyiv, and provides no basis for linking those businesses to the invasion.

dpa-factcheckingWar & conflict

Die Fotos und Videos zeigen ukrainische Truppen gleich neben der Geburtsklinik in Mariupol.

Publisher’s rating: Die Fotos und Videos sind an Orten aufgenommen worden, die mehrere Kilometer von der Geburtsklinik entfernt liegen. Sie sind somit kein Beleg für die Behauptung, dass ukrainische Soldaten und Rechtsextreme sich in der Geburtsklinik verschanzt haben sollen. Es gibt keinerlei Belege dafür, dass die Klinik zum Zeitpunkt des Angriffs nicht auch als solche genutzt wurde. Dass es bei dem Angriff zivile Opfer gegeben hat, ist durch unabhängige Medien dokumentiert worden.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturWar & conflict

Die Bilder zeigen den Maidan in Kiew am 20.2.2022 und am 25.2.2022.

Publisher’s rating: Beide Bilder stammen nicht vom behaupteten Aufnahmedatum. Tatsächlich zeigt das obere Foto Kiew am 25. Februar 2022. Das untere stammt aus der Zeit der Maidan-Proteste vor acht Jahren.

The claim concerned a sharepic comparing two images of Kyiv’s Maidan: it attributed the upper image to February 20, 2022, and dated the lower image February 25, implying that the square had been devastated between those dates. The investigation found that the pictures were not made within a few days of each other. It identified the upper image as footage from Kyiv on February 25, 2022, and the lower as a photograph from the Maidan protests in 2014. To check the upper image, the investigation compared it with a video distributed by Reuters and published, among other places, by the Washington Post. It reported that the sharepic image matches the video at the 50-second mark, with the positions of cars in the background used to identify the matching frame. The video shows Independence Square during an air-raid alert. For the lower image, the investigation traced it to a Reuters photograph by Olga Yakimovich from the 2014 unrest in Kyiv. It also noted that a separate camera near Reuters’s camera streamed footage throughout the day for Spanish newspaper Marca. Thus, the comparison combines a 2022 image and an image from the 2014 protests, rather than showing the square before and after events on February 20 and 25, 2022.