An image shared on Facebook allegedly shows a CNN tweet about Ukrainian children volunteering to fight the Russians.

Verdict: False

The tweet is digitally fabricated. There is no evidence CNN tweeted about child soldiers in Ukraine.

Fact Check:

The Russian Ministry of Defense has threatened to scale up its attacks against Ukraine if the country strikes Russian territory, according to BBC News. Almost 5 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country since the Russian invasion began in February, according to the outlet.

An image shared on Facebook April 11 purportedly shows a tweet from news network CNN about Ukrainian children volunteering to fight the Russians. “As fighting intensifies in Eastern Ukraine, brave children sign up to fight the Russian invaders,” reads the alleged tweet. “We spoke to one girl, named Olga from Zaporizhzhia, aged 12, who tells her story of taking up arms to fight invading Russian troops.”

The tweet is digitally fabricated. No such story about child soldiers in Ukraine appears on CNN’s website. Likewise, there are no tweets from the verified Twitter accounts of CNN, CNN International or CNN Breaking News that mention such a story. Archived versions of the outlet’s Twitter pages show no signs of the alleged tweet. (RELATED: Did CNN Publish This Tweet About A Ukrainian Hotel That Was Destroyed By Russian Bombers?)

“[It] is a fake screenshot,” said CNN Head of Strategic Communications Matt Dornic in an email to Check Your Fact. “CNN did not produce, publish or tweet this story. The photo appears to have been lifted from a piece published by a different news organization several years ago.”

This is not the first time CNN has been the subject of misinformation related to the war in Ukraine. Check Your Fact recently debunked a viral image that claimed to show a CNN chyron reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned India against interfering in his invasion of Ukraine.