Amidst the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, a video through a post is being widely shared on social media claiming that western media is showing fake dead bodies of Ukrainian citizens. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video depicting western media showing fake dead bodies of Ukrainian citizens.
Fact: The video is from a climate change protest in Vienna, it is not from Ukraine. The people who were lying as corpses in the background were symbolically referring to a new study which says that there could be 49 deaths every day in Austria because of climate change. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When reverse image search is done on the screenshots of the video, the full video with similar visuals was found on an Austrian news website. The full video uploaded on 04 February 2022 says the visuals are from a demonstration in Vienna. The same video was uploaded on YouTube by the official channel of OE24.TV. The English translation of ‘WIEN: DEMO GEGEN KLIMAPOLITIK’ is, ‘Vienna: Demo against climate policy’. The English translation of the banners held by people in the video reads, ‘Climate Protection Act Saves Lives’ and ‘Current Climate Policy Don’t’. The interview of a climate activist can be seen on the same website which was uploaded on the same day.
The person who reported the incident in Vienna was OE24.TV’s reporter, named ‘Marvin Bergauer’. In his Facebook page, Marvin Bergauer clarified that the video was from a ‘Fridays for Future’ climate protests in Vienna. The people who were lying as corpses in the background were symbolically referring to a new study that says that there could be 49 deaths every day in Austria because of climate change. The reporter, in another post earlier, said the video also went viral linking it to COVID-19 before.
To sum it up, a video report about a climate change protest in Vienna is being shared as western media showing fake dead bodies of Ukrainian citizens.
