Well, there's no doubt emotions are running very high in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
People are upset, in shock and disbelief.
But one thing that isn't helping at all is the unbelievable amount of fake images and
videos being spread, not only on social media, but also by legitimate news outlets.
I even made the mistake myself here on Rising on Friday, when I stated I was impressed with
Zelensky getting into.
full military gear to fight on the front lines.
Turns out that was an image from last April.
I fell for it.
I apologize.
Unfortunately, I'm not alone in falling for it.
Bild, a political news outlet in Germany, shared a video of what looked to be a horrific
bombing by the Russians in Kiev during one of their broadcasts.
But it turns out the footage was from a 2015 chemical explosion in Tianjin, China.
Newsmax used a photo of a crying older woman standing in front of her devastated home with
the caption, the current devastation in Ukraine.
But the photo was from 2015.
and Italian news broadcast used footage from the video game War Thunder when talking about the war
in Ukraine. No doubt viewers seeing a rain of missiles were horrified. So I want to go through
some of the most egregious examples of the fake news circulating around.
But I have to preface this because we are in a Western nation that is supportive of Ukraine in
this conflict. The vast majority of the fake news that we see circulating is anti-Russian.
So I'll be debunking a lot of this type of information. However,
I have no doubt similar fake news is circulating in Russia and in pro-Russian countries.
showing fake news that is disparaging of Ukrainians. We're just not seeing much of it,
so I can't debunk it. So keep this in mind before you lash out at me and call me a pro-Putin Russian
asset at the end of this segment. So let's start with what I think is the most astonishing example
of fake news circulating. It was being reported that 13 heroic soldiers on Snake Island were
confronted by a Russian warship. The audio recording shows the Russians telling the
Ukrainians to lay down their arms to avoid bloodshed.
and unjustified deaths. The Ukrainians are infamously heard saying, Russian warship,
go F yourself. It was then reported they fought valiantly until they were all killed by the
Russians. President Zelensky even announced he would posthumously award the men medals of valor.
Well, it turns out, whomever claimed they had died was mistaken.
Instead, the Ukrainian border guard disputed whether anyone was killed.
and shortly after video footage emerged of the Russians giving food and water to the 82 men,
not 13 from Snake Island,
who were then being transferred to Crimea. Some of the soldiers have now given interviews saying
if the Russians wanted to bury them they would have and now they instead will go home to their
families. Another shocking video was of a tank swerving in the street and running over a civilian
car. Totally shocking video jaw-dropping but thank goodness the person actually survived this
crushing experience. Media was reporting this as a Russian tank and using it to show the callousness
of the Russians and their invasion.
But it turns out this was actually a Ukrainian tank that had lost control
and accidentally ran over that vehicle. And I'm sure everyone involved was relieved that person
was okay. Russian tanks are marked with white Zs, by the way, for future reference when you're
looking at any video. Now many of you saw the heart-wrenching video of the father saying a
very tearful goodbye to his wife and daughter as he goes off to battle.
This was being reported as a Ukrainian man sending his family to safety while he fights against the
Russians. Well, the man is Ukrainian, sort of, I suppose. He's one of the rebels in the
Donetsk People's Republic. He was sending his family to Russia for safety while he stayed
behind to fight Ukrainian forces. The original video was posted by the mayor of his town several
days before the Russians invaded Ukraine.
And, of course, I can't leave out the ghost of Kiev.
There's footage of a fighter pilot downing several Russian jets.
The video, of course, went viral with millions of views.
The claims are this pilot took down six Russian jets in one day.
But now, by the way, that number has jumped up to 10 Russian jets being taken down.
Now, a fighter pilot who takes down five planes throughout the course of their entire career
is called an ace.
So, to have six in one day, or even ten in one week...
is incredible. It's actually unbelievable, in fact. And it turns out the footage is from a video game
called Digital Combat Simulator. But even with this video being debunked, the former Ukrainian
president Poroshenko,
is tweeting that it's real and even shared a masked photo of the pilot.
And there's a lot of wild claims going around of who the pilot is, there's a lot of talk
that maybe the pilot's even a woman.
And of course it turns out that that old photo, that photo there is actually an old photo
that's recirculated so it's still unlikely that Ghost of Kiev is real.
But a lot of people fell for it and you can't blame them for wanting to boost up morale,
I suppose.
Now, the list of this fake news or fake videos and images just is endless on social media.
Totally endless.