CHECK – Was a Danish F-16 pilot working for NATO really killed by Russia in Ukraine?

This is one of the latest stories fabricated by pro-Russian propaganda accounts. Publications on (new window)some of which reach more than 800,000 views, claim that a pilot “NATO-affiliated and from Denmark” reportedly killed by a Russian missile strike on an aviation school in Krivoy Rog, Ukraine. Presented as an instructor who came to Ukraine to train pilots to drive F-16s, according to certain publications he would have disclosed “inadvertently locating him to a prostitute, leading to a strike that proved fatal.” The content was also relayed on Facebook (new window) and by Russian media articles such as on Russia Today citing the Russian agency TASS (new window).

The deception does not stop there: other accounts have published supposed photos of the pilot, one where he poses in front of a plane with his helmet, the other revealing his face in front of the camera. Some publications claim that “Reports on social media confirmed his death, and friends mourned his loss online”.

A mix of real information, artificial intelligence, and fake profiles

The material presented in this story is a mixture of true and false information. As noted by the X Geoconfirmed account (new window)specialized in the geolocation of videos on social networks, a Russian strike really took place in Krivoi Rog. The targeted building, the Professional College of the National Aviation University, was geolocated (new window)thanks to videos documenting the strike.

On the other hand, the story of a deceased Danish instructor is not based on any solid information. The Danish Defense Minister even published a press release on January 19 (new window) to confirm that“No Danish soldiers were killed in Ukraine, this is a false story circulating in Russian media – probably to discredit Denmark,” claiming to take this attempt at disinformation “very seriously”.

The images in the publications were also created by artificial intelligence. We can see this by comparing the F-16 in the background with a real plane, which has four communications antennas, not six. The versions of the image circulating on social networks are also knowingly cropped so that the logo of Grok, the tool used to generate images on X, is not visible at first glance.

Another photo presented as that of the pilot also circulated on social networks. It was notably taken up by a Linkedin account (new window) which claimed to show that the pilot was part of NATO. The photo has since been deleted. The Verifiers team was able to note that this photo had only appeared on Russian-speaking sites. The first occurrence found also comes from a Telegram account (new window) relaying Russian military information and ensuring that “Danish media have confirmed the information”. However, no Danish media has confirmed the death of a soldier named “Jeppe Hansen”.

An initial source that is not very credible

By looking for the origin of this rumor, we were able to trace it back to a publication on Telegram (new window) dated January 18 and mentioning the name Jeppe Hansen in Russian (“Jeppe Hans“) for the first time. The publication claims, with a supporting screenshot, that a friend of the pilot announced his death on X, with a message in Danish, translated into Russian.

However, this message never existed. There is no trace of it on X, and the account from which it was allegedly posted did not exist on January 17, the supposed date of the message. Since then, an Internet user has even had fun using the same account name, proving that it had never been created before. And he posted this message (new window)to mock the attempted misinformation: “Imagine being too lazy to just create a fake account to tweet.”

To date, no Ukrainian military personnel have been trained to fly F-16s on Ukrainian soil. However, training did take place in Romania (new window)In France (new window)in the United States (new window)and in Denmark (new window)in recent months.

This example of a fake Danish pilot is part of the manipulations already observed in other false information, such as that of Operation Storm-1516 (new window) documented by Microsoft in particular. Fake media sites, fake interviews using deepfakes (new window), all relayed by robots giving artificial visibility to manipulative operations.

Do you want to ask us questions or submit information that you do not believe is reliable? Do not hesitate to write to us at [email protected]. Also find us on Twitter: our team is present there behind the account @verif_TF1LCI.