Monday, Apr. 4, 2022
Does a video show rows of graves dug for Russian soldiers before the war in Ukraine started?
The video of open graves in Russia does predate Russia's invasion of Ukraine. However, the graves weren't dug in anticipation of Russian deaths from the invasion. The administrator of the cemetery told a Russian news outlet in 2021 that they dig many graves in the fall because the ground becomes too hard in the winter.
A reverse image search of the video by Lead Stories found the same video in a tweet published on Oct. 9, 2021. A Russian news report in 2021 quoted the administrator of the cemetery explaining graves are dug in the autumn to avoid digging in the hard ground of Russia's winter.
This video circulating in March 2022 was also used in 2021 to incorrectly claim that this cemetery was digging graves for oncoming deaths because of "forced vaccinations."
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.
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