A video shows President Zelenskyy’s Kyiv office being blown up by Russian forces around 10 October 2022.
This is false. The video doesn’t show this, and journalists on the ground have confirmed that the office was not hit.
A number of posts shared on Facebook on 10 October claim a video shows the aftermath of the bombing of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office by Russian forces.
There is no evidence that this happened, and plenty of evidence that the presidential offices remain intact at the time of writing.
The claim appears to have stemmed from Twitter, where an account tweeted the video on 10 October, saying: “ZELENSKY'S OFFICE WAS DESTROYED BY A MISSILE STRIKE: UKRAINIAN MEDIA”.
It included a video that had been tweeted earlier by another account, which made no mention of the president’s office but said explosions had been reported in the centre of Kyiv. In a subsequent tweet, accompanied by a different video, an account called “UkraineNews” said “#Zelensky Office may have been hit (unconfirmed)”.
Russian missiles hit regions across Ukraine on Monday 10 October, including multiple strikes in Kyiv.
Full Fact could find no record of Ukrainian media outlets reporting that President Zelenskyy’s office has been destroyed.
The Associated Press said its journalists in Kyiv confirmed the building was not hit. Kyiv’s Mayor, Vitali Klitschko, listed on Telegram the buildings that had been damaged, including two administrative buildings, but did not mention the presidential office.
The video shows large plumes of smoke in the distance and at least two unique buildings in Kyiv’s skyline. Reuters used these and other visible buildings to identify that the area being filmed is an area over a mile from the president’s official offices.
And President Zelenskyy published a video on Facebook later that morning discussing the attacks, outside his offices which did not appear to be damaged.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because there is no evidence that President Zelenskyy’s office was destroyed in Russian strikes on 10 October 2022.
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