Photos claiming to show explosions in Ukraine are actually from Gaza
What was claimed
Three photographs show explosions in Ukraine.
Our verdict
One of the photographs is of an explosion in Ukraine. The other two show Gaza.
A post shared over 1,000 times on Facebook features three images of explosions, with a caption describing the current invasion of Ukraine and stating: “Explosions have been heard in Ukraine after Russia launched a full-scale invasion this morning.”
Russian forces entered two rebel held areas in eastern Ukraine on 22 February, before an invasion of Ukraine was announced by Russian president Vladimir Putin on 24 February.
However, only one of the three pictures actually features an image of Ukraine, showing an explosion in the capital Kyiv.
The other two photographs are pictures from Gaza. One picture shows an explosion following an Israeli airstrike on 10 May 2021, while the second picture is from an airstrike on 9 August 2018.
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Photo by Dmitry A. Mottl via Wikimedia Commons
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 partly false because two of the three photographs were taken in Gaza not Ukraine.
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