Fact Checking the Arab Media

An-Nahar’s caption reads in English: “Firemen working on extinguishing a fire at a school destroyed by a Russian bombing of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv,” pointing to its source, which is the Associated Press.

On April 15, the Russian embassy in Lebanon challenged An-Nahar’s report on its Telegram page, which is being used to relay Russian positions towards the Ukraine war that erupted on February 24 when its forces invaded the country. The page carried the report and wrote the English word “fake” on it inside a red frame, captioning it: “Russia never bombs schools. Russia bombs arms depots and the hideouts of the Ukrainian Nazis solely [emphasis added].”

A source at the Russian embassy in Beirut explained to Arabmediafactcheck.org, on condition of anonymity, that, “the embassy wanted to focus on the caption accompanying the picture, which said that Russia was bombing schools, so as to point out its fakeness, but did not respond to the rest of the report.”

Although the Associated Press carried this picture and others of the war in Ukraine on its official Images Blog, which supports the authenticity of the image used by An-Nahar, we spoke directly to the Agency’s photographer who took the picture, Brazilian national Felipe Dana, a professional photographer who has previously documented many wars, as seen on his social media accounts. Via Instagram, we asked him several questions regarding the details and location of his April 12 photo. Dana indeed confirmed that the culinary school was bombed, and sent us a Google Map link of its location. He indicated that “they [i.e. the Russian Army] also hit other schools in Kharkiv,” adding: “Their denial [i.e. that of the Russian embassy] is false.”

Back to An-Nahar newspaper, which carried the picture with a full report about Ukraine in its April 14, 2022 issue, we noticed that the report, including the agency’s picture, was not present on the newspaper’s website. The director of digital content at An-Nahar newspaper, Diana Skaini, explained the absence of this report from the website by saying: “Not all the material published in the paper edition appears online, especially news reports that may have been carried instantly on the website.” She added: “We avoid having two links, one for the website and one for the newspaper, leading to the same content. In regard to the report you inquired about, it is not present on the website for the aforementioned reason.”

Fact-Check Assessment: Likely True

The Russian embassy did not provide any evidence, when asked as a follow-up, which would reasonably challenge the multiple pieces of evidence showing that the picture was of the attack on the culinary school in Kharkiv on April 12, 2022.

Additionally, the photographer who took the picture, Felipe Dana from the Associated Press, confirmed that the Russians were the ones who bombed the culinary school, though we could not get a confirmation of that from another source.

Finally, what was noticeable about the response of the Russian embassy in Beirut to An-Nahar’s caption on the aforementioned picture is that it said Russia never bombed any schools. However, multiple, reliable sources, including the United Nations, have confirmed throughout the years that the Russian army has indeed bombed schools (in Syria and now in Ukraine). Still, we cannot confirm beyond a reasonable doubt that 1) it was the Russian military who bombed the culinary school and 2) whether this specific attack meets the standard of being a war crime, especially since we are not able to verify Russian intentions or whether civilians were definitively harmed. If there was civilian harm on April 12 as a result of Russian bombing, did the Russians know that the harm caused to civilians and civilian targets would outweigh the value of any alleged military target? If these points could be confirmed, the Russian bombing of the school would very likely constitute a war crime.

These remaining questions are important for the reader to consider given that the International Criminal Court can prosecute the crime of “Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated,” as per the ICC Statute.

In this regard, on April 22 the UN Human Rights Office indicated that there was increasing evidence pointing to Russian war crimes in Ukraine, announcing that humanitarian law appears to have been “tossed aside.”

Taken together, we therefore can definitively say that the Russian embassy’s claim in regards to the April 14 An-Nahar report - i.e. that Russia never bombs schools - is false. Furthermore, although we believe it is likely true that the Kharkiv culinary school bombing on April 12 was indeed conducted by Russian forces, and may therefore even constitute a war crime, because of the lack of additional sources as well as verifiable insight into the Russian military action (when it comes to the latter war crime charge), we cannot determine whether An-Nahar’s specific captioning of the AP photo is accurate beyond a reasonable doubt.