A video shows Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying the US will have to send their sons and daughters to fight in Ukraine.
This clip is from 2023 and has been taken out of context. In the full video, Mr Zelenskyy discusses how Ukraine losing the war would risk Russia invading Baltic NATO member states, potentially leading to US involvement on the ground.
A video of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is being shared on social media with claims it shows him saying that Americans will have to send their “sons and daughters to fight his proxy war in Ukraine and they will be dying”.
In the clip, a voice translating for President Zelenskyy says: “The US will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the same way as we are sending their sons and daughters to war. And they will have to fight. Because it’s NATO that we’re talking about, and they will be dying, God forbid, because it’s a horrible thing.”
But this clip has been taken out of context. It originally comes from a news conference conducted by Mr Zelenskyy in February 2023. The video shows Mr Zelenskyy speaking in Ukrainian, while an English translator’s audio is dubbed over him.
Before the clip being shared on social media begins, a journalist asked President Zelenskyy about opinion polls in the United States which suggested a growing number of Americans believed the US was giving too much support to Ukraine. The journalist asked Mr Zelenskyy what his message would be to those people.
Mr Zelenskyy then thanked the American people for their support, before discussing what might happen if Ukraine loses the war. He described a hypothetical situation in which Russia invades NATO member countries. He did not call on Americans to fight in Ukraine.
He said: “The US is never going to give up on the NATO member states, if it happens so that Ukraine, due to various opinions and a weakening and depleting of assistance, loses, Russia is going to enter Baltic states, NATO member states, and then the US will have to send their sons and daughters, exactly the same way as we are, sending their sons and daughters to war. And they will have to fight. Because it’s NATO that we’re talking about, and they will be dying, God forbid, because it’s a horrible thing.”
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ruled out deploying the country’s own forces on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peace deal, and has called on European nations to increase defence spending.
We have fact checked a number of claims about Ukraine in recent days, after a sit down meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy escalated into a row at the Oval Office last week.
During breaking news events it’s important to consider whether videos and images shared on social media really show what they claim to. Our guides to verifying misleading videos and pictures can help you do this.
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 missing context because this clip has been taken out of context. It shows President Zelenskyy discussing a hypothetical situation in which Russia invades NATO member countries.
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