Social media is trending with posts about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including misleading and miscaptioned posts.
One such post is a photo that features a soldier in camouflage holding a cat with the caption “Ukraine army cats are trained to spot and direct the location of Russian sniper laser dots. This is Mikael, called ‘The panther of Kharkiv’, who single-handedly exposed the location of four snipers, which ended in their deaths.”
The photo was shared on micro-blogging site Twitter on February 27, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine.
While militaries have weaponised animals throughout history, news of the Ukrainian army using cats to locate Russian snipers is not true. Military experts have dismissed it as “complete garbage” and the author of the post acknowledged it was intended as a joke, news agency reported.
This is not the first time that such viral posts have left people confused. Another widely shared video showing a Ukrainian fighter jet, piloted by a solider nicknamed ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ and eliminating six Russian fighters, was in fact, footage from a digital combat simulator.
As Russia’s aggression in Ukraine continues, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said that 100,000 people have been evacuated in the past two days from seven cities, including the Kyiv suburbs. Providing an update on Mariupol in a nightly video address, Zelenskyy said the Russian invaders “have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, to mock it, to constantly bomb and shell it.”
India, meanwhile, is carrying out a challenging evacuation operation to help stranded Indians leave war-hit Ukraine.