FACT CHECK: Did ABC News Report That One Million Ukrainian Soldiers Have Died In The War?
A post on X claims that ABC News reported the Ukrainian death toll in their war with Russia as reaching the one million mark.
BREAKING: ABC News reveals that one million Ukraine soldiers have died in 2.5 years.
— Douglas Macgregor (@DougAMacgregor) December 12, 2024
Verdict: False
Claim comes from an altered video, ABC News has not reported this. The actual death toll is much lower.
Fact Check:
The Russia-Ukraine War has been hot since 2022 when Russia invaded it’s neighbor due to a border dispute. The Ukraine gained independence in 1991, however Russia has still held claim to the land and also strongly opposes any Western interference in this matter. The United States has given over 60 rounds of assistance to Ukrainian forces, totaling over $113 billion thus far.
A post on X from retired Army colonel Douglas McGregor, a staunch believer that Russia has already won the war, claims that the death toll on the Ukrainian side has reached the one million mark. However, this is not the case.
McGregor’s X post did not state a source, however he was likely referencing a viral Instagram post that was deemed to be fake. The post from “Breaking911” states “SHOCKING REPORT BY ABC NEWS: “In just about 2.5 years of war about 1 million Ukrainian soldiers have died” and “hundreds of thousands have lost limbs.” The video shows Russian subtitles and men walking around a hospital, along with a female ABC news host that is supposedly saying false claims.
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The included footage from ABC News was fake, and the outlet has never reported a death toll that high. According to USA Today, the fake video used genuine footage from a 2023 report about Ukrainian soldiers getting fitted with prosthetics in New York City, with false audio overlaid on it. The original video does not talk about death tolls at all.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in a December 8 post on X that the current Ukrainian war casualty count is at 43,000, while the Russian death toll sits at 198,000.
