Social media posts claim CNN lied to the public by tweeting that a man was the first US casualty in Ukraine after previously featuring the same photo in a post about his execution in Afghanistan. This is false; the network says the tweets are not from its official accounts, and the man pictured is a YouTube video game commentator who continues to livestream on the platform.

"Wow!! The same person that was 'executed' by the Taliban in Afghanistan is also the first American casualty in the 'Ukraine Crisis.' See how that works? CNN is the enemy of the people," says the text of a February 25, 2022 Facebook post that includes images of tweets from the handles @CNNUKR and @CNNAfghan.

The tweets both feature the same photo of a bald, bearded man wearing glasses standing in front of a house. In one, the alleged CNN Afghanistan Twitter account mourns the death of journalist Bernie Gores, executed in Kabul by the Taliban, while in the other, the alleged CNN Ukraine account recounts the end of activist Gores, who stepped on a mine planted by Russian-backed separatists.

Social media posts featuring images of the same tweets appeared in French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese in the days after the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine. One of Moscow's UN envoys, Dmitry Polyanskiy, also denounced the "lies and fakes" of the mainstream media in a tweet featuring the images.

But CNN spokesperson Jonathan Hawkins told AFP on February 28 that the Twitter accounts behind the tweets "are...

Read Full Story: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32496VK