{"id":1333740,"date":"2022-02-23T17:23:28","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T22:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1333740"},"modified":"2022-02-23T17:23:33","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T22:23:33","slug":"fact-check-does-this-image-show-ukrainian-christians-praying-in-february-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-does-this-image-show-ukrainian-christians-praying-in-february-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Does This Image Show Ukrainian Christians Praying In February 2022?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-does-this-image-show-ukrainian-christians-praying-in-february-2022%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1333740&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A photo <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.md\/jCtw6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shared on Facebook<\/a> purportedly shows Christians in Kyiv, Ukraine praying outdoors amid the current Ukraine-Russia crisis.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span>Verdict: Misleading<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While the photo does show Ukrainians praying, the image is from 2019 and was not taken in Kyiv. The image has nothing to do with the current situation in the country.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span>Fact Check:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin officially recognized separatist areas in eastern Ukraine as independent on Monday, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-boris-johnson-europe-emmanuel-macron-2b7c2949ae3168effce9d0cb2584bb32\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Associated Press<\/a>. Putin ordered Russian troops to enter those regions for \u201cpeacekeeping\u201d hours later, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/02\/21\/europe\/russia-ukraine-tensions-monday-intl\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Facebook post calls for people to \u201cPray for Ukraine,\u201d and includes a photo of people gathered on their knees in a snowy area in prayer. \u201cThis weekend, Ukrainian Christians gathered to pray \u2013 outdoors, in the snow \u2013 as they looked at the skyline of their capital, Kyiv,\u201d the post\u2019s caption reads, in part.<\/p>\n<p>However, the photo was not taken in Kyiv and predates the current Ukraine-Russia conflict. The image first appeared in a September 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imb.org\/2019\/09\/25\/standing-on-our-knees-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">article<\/a> published by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imb.org\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">International Mission Board (IMB)<\/a>, a U.S.-based Baptist Christian organization. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2022\/02\/15\/fact-check-cnn-russian-invasion-putin-biden\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: Did CNN Air This Chyron About Putin Waiting To Invade Ukraine Until Biden Sends Weapons \u2018For Russia To Capture\u2019?)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The article identified the people in the picture as Ukrainians praying in Kharkiv, a city in northeast Ukraine, not in Kyiv. The same buildings visible in the photo can be seen in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/@50.0062431,36.2279965,3a,75y,293.74h,99.98t\/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1see7LiNLM20qYwP3I7ER7Bg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google Maps<\/a> street view of the location from June 2015. The IMB article states the tradition of praying outside began in March 2014 amid separatist violence in the region.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time a religious gathering in the country has been used to spread misinformation. Check Your Fact recently <a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2022\/02\/07\/fact-check-ukraine-christians-gathering-gospel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">corrected<\/a> an image that claimed to show \u201chundreds of thousands\u201d of Christians gathering in Ukraine in 2022 to preach the Gospel but actually showed Christians gathered in Ukraine in 2017 to hear a motivational speaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A photo shared on Facebook purportedly shows Christians in Kyiv, Ukraine praying outdoors amid the current Ukraine-Russia crisis.Verdict: Misleading While the photo does show Ukrainians praying, the image is from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}