Out of the 197 fact-checking articles our team wrote in 2023, 52 of them concerned the war in Ukraine. And 50 of those highlighted pro-Russian disinformation aimed at discrediting Kyiv and the Ukrainian war effort.
The FRANCE 24 Observers team also covered two pro-Ukrainian claims that targeted Russia, but they were shared less widely than the pro-Russian disinformation we covered this year.
Here's a look back at this year's most striking false claims.
'Child soldiers' in Ukraine, an unfounded accusation
A frequent topic in the information war between Ukraine and Russia is the allegation that the Ukrainian authorities are using "child soldiers". As proof of this, some pro-Russian accounts shared a video showing three young-looking people in military uniform.
We were able to identify two of the three "soldiers". One is a 23-year-old ambulance driver and the other a 25-year-old soldier, both volunteers.
When contacted by FRANCE 24, the NGO Amnesty International said that it was "not aware of any documented cases of child soldiers in the Ukrainian army".
To find out more, click here.
Anti-Ukraine billboards all over the world?
In 2023, a common theme of disinformation was fake advertisements aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian government. People shared pictures of fake billboards, claiming they were in the United States, Poland and Germany.
But we took a closer look through graphic analysis of the images and contacted the companies that manage the billboards.
Find out why this is such a dominant claim.
False claims of corruption
We also saw a number of false reports claiming that Ukrainian authorities were embezzling Western aid money for their own personal gain.
Like this one, claiming that President Volodymyr Zelensky bought a villa in Florida and got American nationality while he was at it.
Fake covers of French newspapers
At least six fake anti-Ukraine covers of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo circulated online this year, especially on Russian Telegram channels.
Then, a fake news report, attributed to French media outlet 20 Minutes, falsely accused Russian independent journalist Ilya Ber of being behind these Charlie Hebdo covers.
The 'Doppelganger' campaign producing fake news at full speed
France has uncovered a major disinformation campaign by Russia, in which leading French media websites like Le Monde, Le Parisien and 20 Minutes have been imitated in order to spread fake news about the war in Ukraine.
The FRANCE 24 Observers, in partnership with Bot Blocker / @Antibot4Navalny, a volunteer group that tracks Russian-language influence operations, analysed this new propaganda campaign, launched on October 25, which is using automated bots and fake articles to discredit Ukraine and Western countries by using the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
