Russian officials denied responsibility for a recent attack on Ukraine, claiming a video of the aftermath is staged and dead bodies shown in the clip really are actors.
The video is filmed from a car driving through a street with dead bodies and debris scattered on both sides of the road.
The Russian Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared a social media post claiming the video contained actors "deliberately laid out to create a more dramatic picture."
"The video of the bodies is confusing," the Russian defense ministry wrote. "Here at the 12th second the 'corpse' on the right is moving his arm. At 30th second in the rear view mirror the 'corpse' sits down."
The video, however, is real but the Russian claims are false, according to PolitiFact. The bodies of those killed in the attack didn't move.
At one point in the clip, a raindrop or speck of dirt moves across the windshield at the moment the car passes a body, making it appear as if an arm moved. And a different body seen in the rearview mirror seems to move, but it's actually an illusion due to distortion in the glass.
"(I) can see no evidence whatsoever that the corpse either moved its arm or sat up," University of Arizona professor emeritus Charles M. Falco told PolitiFact.
"What I do see is the effect on the reflected image of the stationary corpse caused by the distortion of the moving convex mirror."
In a different video of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,...
A front-page article with the byline of veteran New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is the latest poisonous example of what I call the NGO “halo effect.” Headlined “The Silence That Mee...