Misinformation About Russia's War

Russia’s war in Ukraine has dominated public discourse since troops amassed at the border before invading on Feb. 24. We’ve done nine stories so far about false and misleading claims related to the war.

When an issue commands this much attention, we keep a running list of our stories on the topic. You can read our articles to date about the war in "FactChecking Claims About the Conflict in Ukraine." We’ll keep updating it as we write more articles.

Most recently, we addressed a viral claim on social media that falsely identified two of the victims of Russia’s bombing of a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol as the same “crisis actor.”

One of the women, who was not identified, later died along with her baby. The other was Marianna Podgurskaya, a social media influencer who survived and gave birth to a daughter on March 10.

Photos of Podgurskaya and the woman who died were misrepresented in social media posts to falsely claim Podgurskaya was a paid crisis actor who posed as two different pregnant women.

The claim spread widely on many platforms and was also posted by the Russian embassy in the U.K., before Twitter removed the post.

We often see bogus claims about “crisis actors” following tragedies. It happened after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018.

Some other recent claims we’ve addressed include the falsehood that American megachurches aren’t supporting Ukrainians, and the mislabeling of an old video to make the false claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin had recently met with the South Korean president.

Reader: I came across this today on Facebook Group “Tin Can Sailors USA”:

“[R]emember the Cuban missile crisis. The state dept just admitted we have Bio Weapons Labs in Ukraine. After this Covid pandemic just imagine what we would be doing if Russia had bio weapons labs in Mexico or Cuba. May be these labs are the ones that Saddam had.”

Is there any truth here?

FactCheck.org Science Editor Jessica McDonald: This isn’t true. Neither the U.S. nor Ukraine has admitted there are U.S.-funded biolabs or bioweapons labs in Ukraine. In fact, officials from both countries have said the opposite, and there’s no evidence that any such labs exist.

As FactCheck.org freelancer Joseph A. Gambardello has explained, many of these bogus claims are distortions of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program, which has worked to improve Ukrainian public health labs and ensure any pathogens remain secure.

Since we published Gambardello’s story on March 2, false claims about Ukrainian bioweapons labs have only spread further, as Russia accused the U.S. of supporting a biological weapons program in Ukraine during a March 11 U.N. Security Council meeting. The U.N. has said it’s not aware of any such program.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson, among other conservative news outlets, have helped to propagate these claims, including by spinning testimony from Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state for political affairs. In a March 8 Senate hearing, Nuland said that Ukraine has “biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of,” adding that the U.S. was working with Ukraine “on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.” 

But as our colleagues at the Washington Post have written, this doesn’t mean Ukraine has a bioweapons program. Many biology labs conducting standard research might have potentially dangerous pathogens, which could become a concern if Russian soldiers take over.

Many labs don’t even have that. One Ukrainian lab that Russia has falsely accused of being part of a covert bioweapons program studies parasites in bats. The researchers collaborated with German scientists, but did not receive U.S. funding -- and there are no infectious pathogens to worry about, as the collected samples were preserved in ethanol, Science reported.

These claims are just the latest in a decades-long effort from Russia to spread falsehoods about the U.S. and biological weapons.

“On a daily basis, Russia propagates disinformation aimed at [Biological Threat Reduction Program’s] laboratory and capacity building efforts in former Soviet Union countries—falsely claiming that the U.S. Department of Defense support is used to develop biological weapons,” a March 11 fact sheet from the Department of Defense states. “Unlike Russia, the United States and Ukraine are not developing biological weapons and are in full compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention.”

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Evidence Still Lacking to Support Ivermectin as Treatment for COVID-19": 
  Randomized controlled trials haven’t found ivermectin is beneficial in treating COVID-19, although results for ongoing studies will provide a more definitive answer. Yet, a video presents two weak studies as “powerful” and “overwhelming” evidence that the medication works to combat COVID-19. 
• "Both Sides Spin Domestic Oil Production": With the U.S. blocking new purchases of Russian oil, the White House, Republicans and the oil industry are engaged in a disagreement over whether the administration has hampered domestic oil production on federal land or whether the industry is holding back. Both sides are spinning the facts. 
• "Ads Attacking Dr. Oz": A super PAC that supports Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick has been flooding the airwaves in the Keystone State with ads attacking his opponent, cardiac surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, as a "Hollywood liberal" and RINO, or Republican in Name Only. We'll provide some context about the claims.
• "Ads Attacking Dave McCormick": The campaign of Dr. Mehmet Oz and a super PAC supporting him are running ads that seek to paint his chief rival in the Pennsylvania Senate Republican primary, Dave McCormick, as a "friend" of China who outsourced Pittsburgh jobs and is out of step with former President Donald Trump. But the ads distort some facts to make that case.
• "TV Ad Features Cherry-Picked Comments from Rep. Ted Budd About Putin": In late February, Republican Rep. Ted Budd described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “erratic,” a “thug” and “intelligent.” He also said Putin has “strategic reasons” for wanting to “protect” his country’s borders, but called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “evil” and pledged support for Ukrainians. But a new TV ad from Republican Pat McCrory cherry-picks from Budd’s remarks to claim the congressman “excuses Putin” for Russia’s deadly attack on Ukraine. 
• "Fauci Continues Making Public Appearances and Hasn’t ‘Disappeared’": Dr. Anthony Fauci has continued making public appearances, although news coverage has largely shifted away from the pandemic since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and COVID-19 cases have dramatically fallen. Some politicians and pundits, however, have suggested that Fauci has become so unpopular that he has “disappeared” from public view. He hasn’t. Fauci has made at least a dozen public appearances since Feb. 15. 
• "Social Media Posts Misrepresent Victims of Hospital Bombed in Mariupol": Russian planes bombed a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 9, killing three people and injuring at least 17, including two pregnant women seen in photos shared around the world. Social media posts falsely claimed one woman “posed” as the two women. One of the women died of her injuries, along with her baby; the other gave birth to a daughter.

• "Publicación malinterpreta campañas de salud pública para concientizar sobre coágulos sanguíneos": En febrero, los Centros para la Prevención y el Control de Enfermedades (CDC, por sus siglas en inglés) y Pfizer tuitearon sobre los peligros de los coágulos sanguíneos en venas, los cuales son relativamente comunes y afectan a hasta 900.000 estadounidenses cada año. Sin embargo, una historia publicada en las redes sociales vinculó erróneamente esos mensajes de salud pública con las vacunas contra el COVID-19. 
• "Aún no hay pruebas que apoyen el tratamiento contra el COVID-19 con ivermectina": Los ensayos controlados aleatorizados no han encontrado beneficios en el uso de la ivermectina como tratamiento contra el COVID-19, aunque los resultados de investigaciones en curso brindarán una respuesta más definitiva. Sin embargo, un video presenta dos estudios de pobre calidad como pruebas “poderosas” y “abrumadoras” de que el medicamento funciona para combatir el COVID-19.