Volunteers carry a sack with debris in Okhmatdyt, the biggest children's hospital in Ukraine, in Kyiv on July 12, 2024 ( AFP / Sergei SUPINSKY)

US influencer baselessly claims Ukraine manipulated image of hospital bombing

Published on August 1, 2024 at 19:23
6 min read
By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA

A US influencer accused the Ukrainian government of editing toys into a picture of a Kyiv pediatric hospital after it was struck by a Russian missile in early July 2024. But the same football and toy truck appear in other photos and footage from the scene, and media forensics experts told AFP the image carries no evidence of digital manipulation.

"The Ukrainian Government PHOTOSHOPPED fake children’s toys into images of the hospital they destroyed in Kiev. This is worse than ZIONIST PROPAGANDA!" says a July 10, 2024 post on X from Jackson Hinkle, whom AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading wartime disinformation.

Screenshot from X taken July 31, 2024

Hinkle's post highlights a football and red toy truck in a photo of the rubble at Okhmatdyt pediatric hospital, which was hit July 8 by a Russian cruise missile that tore through its toxicology department and damaged large portions of the clinic's surrounding buildings.

Ukraine said a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile smashed into the renowned children's hospital, killing two adults, a nephrologist and a visitor. Moscow denied responsibility and blamed Ukrainian air defense systems, a claim that the United Nations and independent fact-checkers have disputed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted the photo shared online, courtesy of the country's Mobile Rescue Center of the State Emergency Service, on July 9 (archived here and here).

AFP found no evidence the image was doctored, despite Hinkle's allegations.

"The football and toy car were not added using Photoshop or other digital editing techniques," said Viktoriya Luchka, head of the Mobile Rescue Center's media and public relations department.

Luchka shared the original camera file with AFP, saying in a July 12 email that a photographer with her agency captured it as rescue workers cleared debris overnight.

"The football and the toy car were lying next to the building where the rescuers were working, and our photographer saw the toy and the ball and took a picture of them on the rubble to show what kind of childhood Ukrainian children have."

Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California-Berkeley (archived here), told AFP in a July 12 email that the photo shows "no evidence of digital manipulation or editing."

He said the Ukrainian government's use of the camera's original RAW file further suggests it "is not fake or manipulated." RAW files retain all of the data from the camera's sensor, without any automatic retouching to the image.

Farid said a model trained to distinguish real pictures from those created by artificial intelligence uncovered no signs of AI generation, either. But he added that he could not rule out whether the toys had been propped up or otherwise staged for dramatic effect.

Matthew Stamm, head of Drexel University's Multimedia and Information Security Lab (archived here), said July 13 that he also "found no evidence of manipulation."

Toys appear in other visuals

Ukraine's State Emergency Service shared several other photos with AFP in which the same red toy truck appears close up or in the distance.

A photo provided by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows a red toy truck as rescuers clear debris at Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine following a July 8, 2024 missile strike (State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

AFP separately found the toys in a picture captured by the Turkish Anadolu Agency a day after the strike. The truck also appears in Instagram photos and YouTube videos from the hospital grounds (archived here, here, here and here).