| schema:text
| - Fact Check: 2014 Azov Battalion volunteer's pic shared as Ukrainian soldier saying goodbye to family to join ongoing war against Russia
A photo with the caption "heartbreaking picture from Ukraine" showing a Ukrainian soldier bidding his family farewell to fight in the war is making the rounds on social media. India Today's Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the image to be old.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
This image has no connection with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The photo was taken in 2014 during an oath-taking ceremony for the new volunteers of the Azov battalion.
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, so does the stream of misinformation and disinformation surrounding it. Recently, several social media users shared a photo with the claim that it was a “heartbreaking picture from Ukraine” that showed a Ukrainian soldier bidding his family adieu to fight the war.
Heartbreaking picture from #Ukraine when an #Ukrainian soldier leaving his family behind for the #UkraineRussiaConflict !! #StopTheWar #UkraineRussia #UkraineWar #UkraineCrisis pic.twitter.com/0YlVInegol — Utkarsh Raj (@utkrshhrj) February 25, 2022
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that the image used in the post was old and not related to the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Archived versions of posts with similar claims can be seen here and here.
AFWA PROBE
While investigating the claim, we first reverse-searched the image and found that The Guardian had published it in a news report on November 6, 2017.
The caption for the photo stated, “A young woman embraces her boyfriend, a volunteer recruit of the Ukrainian army, in Kyiv in 2014.”
Taking this as a cue, we then conducted a keyword search, limiting results to only the year 2014. We found that the Wall Street Journal had published the same photo on June 27, 2014.
The caption used with this photo in this article stated, “A woman embraces her boyfriend, a volunteer recruit of the Ukrainian army's Azov battalion, after an oath-swearing ceremony in Kyiv on Monday. About 600 new volunteers of the battalion will join the military operation against pro-Russian militants in the east of the country.”
Both The Guardian and the WSJ attributed the photo to Sergei Supinsky of Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Hence, we can conclude that the claim in this photo is misleading. While it does feature a Ukrainian soldier, the photo has no connection with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The photo is from 2014.
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)