Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
Amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops nearly 2,000 Ukrainian civilians have been reported dead. Even after eight days since the invasion, social media is flooded with unverified allegations and speculation about the constantly shifting ground situation.
Conflicting statements over number of deaths of civilians and troops both countries are adding to confusion online. In light of these events a video has gone viral claiming that “Ukrainian media are faking the deaths of civilians.”
The video, shared by Twitter user @arunpudur has garnered around 1,33,000 views and has received 1,435 likes and 822 retweets. The caption reads ‘Miracle! Death Ukrainians coming to life after dying on social media but caught on live camera. This entire PR disaster is falling apart very fast.’
In the video, a news reporter is seen speaking in a foreign language in front of scores of body bags when one of the body bags begins to move and the individual in the body bag is seen covering himself.
Newschecker found similar claims with different captions.
Also Read: Old Video Showing ‘Massive Explosion’ Goes Viral Amid #RussiaUkraineConflict
Factcheck/ Verification
To verify the authenticity of the video, Newschecker conducted a reverse image search of the key-frames of the video on Google and found a longer version of the video on the OE24.TV YouTube channel uploaded on February 4, 2022.
Owned by Österreich, a Vienna based German language daily newspaper, OE24 is a 24 hour news TV channel in partnership with CNN.
Upon using the subtitles feature on YouTube we found that the news reporter is speaking about an incident where 49 protesters were lying down on the ground, covered in body bags, to show the number of people who could die each day in Austria due to climate change.
Upon further investigation, Newschecker found a video shared on the oe24.at website uploaded on 4 February, 2022 which is the same as the viral video.
The video is titled ‘Wien: Demo gegen Klimapolitik’ which when translated from German reads Vienna: Demo against climate policy.
Conclusion
Newschecker’s investigation found that an unrelated video published much before Russia invaded Ukraine is being used out of context claiming that Ukraine’s media is “ faking civilian deaths” . The visuals in fact are from February 4th, 2022 and were recorded during a citizen protest against climate change in Austria.
Result: False Context/ False
Sources
YouTube Channel Of OE24.TV
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Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
