Did a Soviet flag fly over the German Reichstag in 2023 before the May 9 Victory Day celebrations? No, that's not true: There is no evidence of this happening. Reverse image and video searches were conducted with no results. There have been no reports in German or international media, confirming that this happened in May of 2023. The claim appeared…

Did the President of Ukraine get detained in The Hague instead of the Russian President? No, that's not true: Neither the president of Russia nor the president of Ukraine was detained in The Hague. On March 17, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but he has yet to be arrested. On May 5,…

Did Poland's President Andrzej Duda say that Ukraine has already lost the war with Russia, and he sees no point in assisting Ukraine because Russia is too strong? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no such information on the official website of the president of the Republic of Poland, where all the president's remarks are collected. No such statement…

Were people in the Crimean peninsula stuck in traffic on the Kerch bridge after a fuel depot blast in the Russian-occupied city of Sevastopol on April 29, 2023? No, that's not true. The footage recently circulated on social media is from October 2022. The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on April 30, 2023, by the…

Is the United States preparing for a nuclear war in Europe by deploying a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East? No, that's not true: There is no evidence nor has it been reported that the United States is currently preparing for a nuclear war in Europe or elsewhere. The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok by…

Did the British weekly New European publish a special issue cover with a cartoon of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sitting on the lap of Dalai Lama and saying: "I'll suck it if you pay me"? No, that's not true: The illustration has not appeared in any issue of The New European. On April 18, 2023, the cover in English with…

Does this photo show the son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Nikolai Peskov taking the military oath? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found the person taking the oath in the photo is not Nikolai Peskov, also known as Nikolai Choles. It is the son of the fifth president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, Oleksii Poroshenko. On April 23, 2023, this…

Does a video circulating on social media show Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the hands of enemy forces, about to be executed? No, that's not true: The person in the video is an actor impersonating Zelenskyy in a YouTube miniseries, meant to be satirical, mocking the Ukrainian president. The claim appeared in a video (archived here) posted on TikTok by the account…

Did Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a video, say the Caspian Sea was the territory of Belarus and promise to find all Belarusians who launched their rockets from the shores of the Caspian Sea? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found this video has been manipulated. This claim was published by different TikTok accounts in Russian. On April 7, 2023,…

Did Polish tv show a map in 2023 'dividing' Ukraine among neighbor states? No, that's not true: a recent news report on national Polish tv did not show such a map. The clip is taken from a old news report aired on Polish public television in 2014. It showed a Russian politician's old proposal to divide Ukraine, shrinking its territory…

Have crocodiles turned up in the Caspian Sea, the world's largest landlocked body of water? No, that's not true: The video on TikTok that makes this claim uses footage of a crocodile filmed in Australia. Crocodiles cannot survive the relatively cool temperatures of the Caspian Sea, bordered by the non-tropical countries of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. The claim…

Did the Ukrainian Parliament submit a bill banning filming in cemeteries? No, that's not true: The screenshot distributed under the masthead of the National News Agency of Ukraine (Ukrinform) is fabricated. Lead Stories found no such information on Ukrinform's official website (archived here), and no such bill has been registered on the Ukrainian Parliament's website. This claim has been published…

Did a decommissioned NASA spacecraft crash in Kyiv, Ukraine? No, that's not true: The flash seen in Kyiv had nothing to do with the spacecraft, which did enter the Earth's atmosphere but nowhere near Ukraine. The claim that a NASA satellite crashed in Kyiv appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by a user named jony.ori on April 19,…

Did a collapse in the value of the American dollar cause the United States to reconnect Russia to the SWIFT financial messaging system? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no evidence that the United States or SWIFT has announced such a decision, as of this writing. On February 28, 2022, the United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Canada…

Does a video on TikTok show a priest from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine performing a "satanic" dance to celebrate Easter? No, that's not true: The man seen in the video is not a priest but a Ukrainian actor. The video was recorded during the filming of a miniseries in 2020. The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here)…

Does a video on TikTok show that Russia moved nuclear weapons to Vyborg, a town near the Finnish border, after Finland joined NATO on April 3, 2023? No, that's not true: The actual location of the town shown in the video is not Vyborg, about 25 miles from Finland, but Kolchugino, in Russia's Vladmir region, 104 miles northeast of Moscow.…

Did LeMan, a Turkish satirical weekly magazine, release a cover in April 2023 on which a caricature of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sets fire to Orthodox priests while the Pope watches and (translated by Lead Stories) says: "It's good"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no such cover on the magazine's official pages. This claim has been published by…

Has North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un announced the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will supply fighter jets and tanks to Russia and said the latest military equipment would go into service in February? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no credible reporting of such an announcement. These false claims have been published by different TikTok accounts. On February 5,…

Did the United States resume building biolabs in Ukraine aimed at developing components for biological weapons under a new name? No, that's not true: The United States has never developed a biological weapons program in Ukraine nor is there evidence it is doing that now. The debunked claim has resurfaced in various forms since the start of Russia's invasion of…

Has the London National Gallery stated that it wants to remove Belgian painter Jan van Eyck's masterpiece The Arnolfini Marriage from the collection due to mass complaints about the resemblance of its character to Russia's President Vladimir Putin? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no such information on the National Gallery's official pages. National Gallery's officials told Lead Stories…