The TikTok account "kiyameti2024" published a short video (15 seconds) yesterday (June 1) in which it claims that 120 members of the Russian mercenary group "Wagner" have entered Mitrovica, alluding to northern Kosovo.
This video also includes a photograph showing 4 soldiers.
After fact-checking conducted through "InVID", it has been confirmed that the soldiers depicted in this image are Ukrainian, and the photo is old.
Link to the video material published on TikTok by the account "qiyameti2024":
This video, as of the writing of this article, has managed to collect nearly 30 thousand views. (see photo below)
Hibrid.info, after research conducted through online search engines, has not found any articles published in online media that reported on the entry of members of the Russian mercenary group "Wagner" into Kosovo.
That this claim made by the aforementioned account is unfounded is also shown by the fact that the soldiers shown in the photograph are not members of "Wagner", but are Ukrainian soldiers.
The photo in question was found published in articles dated March 30, 2022 in several foreign media, with the caption “Ukrainian soldiers prepare for battle on the outskirts of Lviv in western Ukraine”, taken by AP / NTB. (see here and here)
Analyze:
After verifying the facts, hibrid.info has confirmed that the claim about the entry of members of the Russian group "Wagner" into Mitrovica is false.
Also, the photo does not show the mercenaries of this Russian group, but rather Ukrainian soldiers. It is also understood that the images shown in this photo correspond to an old event, and was published in March 2022 in several foreign media articles.
After verifying the facts, hibrid.info assesses this claim as "Fake News".
Reasoning:
The "Fake News" rating is given to media reports that are entirely the product of a medium that itself contains factually incorrect claims or information.
Content that is considered fake news can be reliably determined to have been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.