Russia launches record missile-drone strike; claims Kinzhals hit F-16 hangars at Ukraine’s Starokostiantyniv base.

Question

youtu.be/Je9nd_fbzww
Russia Conducts Biggest Ever Missile Drone Strike, Warns Tough Response If Aircraft Downed; #Moldova
#Mercouris
"Russian sources allege two #Kinzhal #hypersonic #missiles struck reinforced #hangars housing Ukrainian #F16 fighter jets at the #Starokostiantyniv #airbase"
#ukraine

Answer 1

The title is pretty broad, which lead me to think that it was false at first, but then after deep research on the theme, I found a lot of common ground with the information the title provides, and the war going from Russia, nowadays.

When I searched the sources the author of the facts-check; YouTube, and twitter links. I did not find anything trustworthy. Firstly, the tweet is just about the YouTube video, there is additional sources or information to add from the Twitter link. Secondly, the YouTube video lead to a Youtube Channel of a guy named Alexander Mercouris, which I looked up in internet, and there is no trust-worthy website that describes his biography fully, I will continue to say that based on his YouTube channel. He seems to be a pro Russian journalist based on his YouTube content, and has 319K subscribers , which could lead us to believe his content is kind of serious.

Nevertheless, when searching for other more trusted sources, and related to theme, I could find correlations of what the title is trying to say.

From the Independent magazine, I could understand the title "Russia Conducts Biggest Ever Missile Drone Strike, Warns Tough Response If Aircraft Downed" better. Starting with the conflict, Putin points out that if the United States supplies long-distance missiles (Tomahawks) to Ukraine, then Russia will end its relationship with United States.

This is just a threat from Russia to U.S to not get involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine, specially providing weapons. Therefore, here we have the "warning"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-trump-putin-zelensky-drones-latest-news-b2840606.html

Furthermore, going off to "Russia Conducts Biggest Ever Missile Drone Strike", I found in the BBC magazine that recently Ukrainian President Zelensky said that Russia fired more than 50 missiles and around 500 attack drones. This part of the fact-check is true

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjvlgzmp4wo#

Lastly, the specific of using a F-16 cannot be check by a website, and there is no information supporting that specific weapon, therefore, it can be true or false.

Conclusion: This fact-check is mostly true from what I have researched, even though the title is broad, and exaggerated, if you look for the broad reasoning behind the argument makes sense. But, when trying to get specific is when looking for other sources is really helpful.

Comments

I liked how detailed and thorough you were with not only the evidence but your explanation of what you found and your overall conclusion of the originally claim.

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I think you did a good job with explaining your process and how you overall got to your answer. I also think that your conclusion is very sophisticated and well thought out. I think it highlights that there sometimes might not be clear exact answer.

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I really liked how you gave every source a thorough check to make sure it was credible or not. As well, I thought you gave a very reasonable scoring of this claim due to the thoroughness of your research, and giving every source the benefit of the doubt.

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This is a great explination and conclusion of the orginal claim which was heavily over exaggerated and vague. When dealing with news surrounding War it is very important to seach for any bias or motive behind the reporting of a story. I liked how you speculated that the youtuber source could be in support of Russia and that could heavily translate to an exaggerated distribution of information.