Photo of wounded Ukrainian woman near Kharkiv is genuine
What was claimed
Widely-used images of a Ukrainian woman wounded following an airstrike near Kharkiv actually depict events from 2018.
Our verdict
This is false, the photographs are genuine and were taken at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Posts being shared on Facebook claim that widely-used images depicting the impact of Russian air strikes on Ukraine residential areas have in fact been faked.
The posts allege that photographs of an injured Ukrainian woman which featured on several front pages across the world recently, and a damaged apartment block nearby, are actually from 2018 and show the same woman having survived a gas explosion that year.
An image shared in the posts reads: “Not to sound unsympathetic but just wonder why the media is using the same woman in 2018 she survived a gas explosion this year she survived missiles in Ukraine. Do you just use the same picture in news stories? is this not the same woman? [sic]”.
This isn’t true, and the recent pictures were taken on 24 February this year by photojournalist Wolfgang Schwan, at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Similar pictures of the same woman were also shared in the media.
Join 74,000 newsletter subscribers who trust us to check the facts
Sign up to get weekly updates on politics, immigration, health and more.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.
The woman in the photographs is teacher Olena Kurilo, who was injured following an air strike on an apartment block in Chuhuiv, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
There was a gas explosion reported in Magnitogorsk, Russia, at the end of 2018. Although the apartment block in the photographs looks similar to the one from Ukraine this year, they’re not the same building. Spanish fact checkers Maldita have examined the differences between the two buildings in depth.
We couldn’t find any images of Ms Kurilo connecting her to this incident, and the Facebook posts don’t offer any evidence that any such photographs exist.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the images shared in the posts are genuine, not misattributed as the posts claim.
Was this helpful?
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.