The Russian invasion of Ukraine and its wider implications are dominating news headlines, television bulletins and social media feeds as a global audience watches the rapidly evolving situation in real time.
But while social media and instant messaging apps have allowed for the quick dissemination of vital information, both misinformation (incorrect or misleading information shared without malicious intent) and disinformation (bad information designed to deliberately mislead) are muddying the waters.
From old Russian narratives about the nationhood of Ukraine, to feel-good (but potentially fake) stories of heroic Ukrainian fighters, fact checkers around the world have already published close to 500 articles debunking claims made about the conflict.
Adding further confusion, the overwhelming volume of information coming out of Ukraine has led to instances of misreporting, even by legitimate and trustworthy news sources.
Take, for example, the story of Snake Island, a tiny piece of disputed land 300 kilometres west of Crimea, where Ukrainian soldiers keeping guard reportedly told a Russian warship to "go f*** yourself" before being killed in an attack.
Ukraine initially said it would posthumously honour the 13 border guards stationed on the island, as reported by the ABC, but an official later said the country had reason to believe all soldiers who had been on the island were alive.
With such inconsistencies rampant in coverage of the war, RMIT ABC Fact Check takes a look at the misinformation problem.
What is being shared where, and by whom?
According to First Draft, a global not-for-profit group that investigates online misinformation and disinformation, most of the misinformation circulating in relation to the situation in Ukraine could be categorised as "unverified claims".
In a document shared with Fact Check, the researchers listed visuals being shared out of context, repackaged old political ads and videos, and Ukraine-related conspiracy theories as examples of wartime misinformation.
One such example was explained through a series of tweets by First Draft's Australian bureau editor Esther Chan, who pointed out that a video supposedly showing war planes over Ukraine that was shared an hour after Russian President Vladimir Putin's declaration of war had actually been filmed in 2020.
Other images and videos shared alongside suggestions they were part of the Ukrainian conflict included a photo taken during an English air show nearly 30 years ago, another taken in Iraq in 2003 and a video that was filmed in Afghanistan in 2010.
Similarly, images showing Ukrainians praying in the snow were from 2015 and 2019, PolitiFact found, while Spanish fact checkers at Maldita confirmed a photo of an injured girl was taken in Gaza in 2021.
As for where this bad information was being shared, First Draft noted that Telegram and Twitter hosted much of the misinformation, with the semi-closed nature of Telegram groups proving particularly challenging for fact checkers and researchers to penetrate.
And while the current volume of global fact checks suggests Ukraine-related misinformation is reaching a mass audience, First Draft's research indicated that, in some places, the war is "being used as an opportunity for anti-vaccine and anti-establishment groups to become homogenous in their views".
Those groups, the researchers noted, are pushing a lack of trust in the mainstream media and undermining governments supporting Ukraine, including Australia.
"First Draft has also observed that Russia has 'new' allies in the US on the right which makes it easy to launder their propaganda … which can easily spread to other countries and inspire local growth of such sentiment in online groups."
Other reporters and researchers, meanwhile, have pointed to TikTok as a source of Ukraine-related misinformation.
Writing for US website Media Matters, misinformation researcher and TikTok expert Abbie Richards pointed to the platform's algorithm and audio features as enablers of the spread of misinformation.
"The video-sharing platform is currently flooded with raw footage of the conflict without any verification of its accuracy," Richards said.
"Videos of missile strikes, explosions, and gunfire exchanges are garnering millions of views, even though some contain older footage unrelated to this conflict or videos manipulated through audio to capitalise on an anxious audience."
The Russian disinformation campaign
According to Olga Boichak, a lecturer in digital cultures at the University of Sydney, much of the incorrect information being shared about the conflict in Ukraine amounted to "rampant disinformation" emanating from Russia.
Dr Boichak, who was born and raised in Ukraine and researches the role of media in military conflicts, pointed to a number of examples of Russian disinformation, including incorrect assertions made by Mr Putin as justification for the invasion.
His central claim, Dr Boichak explained, was that Ukraine was "not a nation" but, rather, a "failing state" and "not legitimate".
But as fact checkers at PolitiFact detailed last week, the Russian President's claim that large parts of Ukraine had been Russian since "time immemorial" was a rewriting of a far more nuanced history of the country.
"In a few brief lines, Putin oversimplified the sprawling, centuries-long history of the region, papering over the forces that had forged a Ukrainian identity," PolitiFact said.
"In reality, Putin's vision of a single people bound together by a common heritage and religion ignores a lot."
PolitiFact also ruled as false Mr Putin's claim that ethnic Russians were facing "genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime".
"Despite multiple claims of a Ukrainian genocide against ethnic Russians, there is no evidence to support it. International bodies that include Russian representatives report that civilian deaths have plummeted since 2014."
Fact checkers at Snopes, meanwhile, explained that claims that Russia had invaded Ukraine in order to attack secret US biolabs in the country were part of an "ongoing Russian disinformation campaign".
"There's no evidence that Russia was targeting "US biolabs" when they launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine," Snopes stated.
"This claim was just the latest iteration in a long-running disinformation campaign by the Kremlin and its supporters."
In addition to deploying disinformation as grounds for an invasion, Russia has continued to push incorrect and misleading narratives as the war rages.
According to Dr Boichak, disinformation from Russia has included a failure to recognise the deaths of Russian troops, while deliberately misleading their own soldiers, some of whom reportedly arrived in Ukraine believing they would be welcomed by the country's citizens.
Online misinformation and disinformation researchers at First Draft noted, however, that it was important to be mindful of the overuse of the "Russian disinformation" label, a topic covered at length by independent online investigators at Bellingcat in 2020.
"To be sure, there is such a thing as Russian disinformation, and it warrants coverage from journalists and researchers," Bellingcat acknowledged.
"However, the way that this topic is covered in many large Western outlets is not always as precise as it could be, and often lacks sufficient context and nuance."
What about Ukraine?
While Russia may be responsible for the bulk of disinformation relating to its invasion of Ukraine, that's not to say the latter has not sought to spread potentially inaccurate narratives about the war.
One example lies in the likely urban myth of the so-called Ghost of Kyiv, supposedly a "flying ace" who was credited by the Ukrainian government with having shot down 10 Russian fighter jets.
It's a morale-bolstering story, but it seems likely fictional: at least one video purporting to show the Ghost in action was, in reality, taken from a video game while, according to London's The Independent, aviation experts had cast doubt on claims the pilot could shoot down six planes in a single day.
A New York Times visual investigator, meanwhile, determined that an explosion had likely taken place at an ammunition depot in the Cherkasy province in central Ukraine on the day Russia invaded the country, despite claims to the contrary by the local governor.
Christiaan Tribert concluded that while Governor Oleksandr Skichko had called a video showing the explosion a "fake", satellite imagery and data "strongly suggest[ed]" that it did indeed occur.
So, where can you go for accurate information?
With so much misinformation circulating, it's important to be able to stick to the facts, with First Draft noting the importance of recognising bad information.
"Some have asked, ‘With everything going on, does it really matter if a wrong video or image from last year in a different location is used here and there by the media?'," the researchers said.
"The answer is yes — when the media mistakenly use the wrong footage, we see a pile on from conspiracy theory groups and propaganda which pounce on this to show how the ‘mainstream media is unreliable'."
Ukranian International Fact Checking Network signatories Stop Fake and VoxUkraine are useful resources, which have intimate knowledge of the country and the situation.
Keeping up to date with fact checks from other accredited organisations, which are being collated at ukrainefacts.org, is also a good way to stay on top of the fakery.
And Bellingcat is collating its findings in a public spreadsheet as well.
Meanwhile, experts from the Queensland University of Technology and Western Sydney University, writing for The Conversation, suggest five simple steps for checking the veracity of images found online, while fact checkers at Full Fact explain the basics of video verification.
Finally, you can subscribe to CoronaCheck, an email newsletter published weekly by RMIT FactLab, Fact Check's research partner, which covers among other things misinformation surrounding the war in Ukraine.
Principal researcher: Ellen McCutchan
