What was claimed
A black-and-white photograph of a crowded railway station looks like it could have been taken in 1941, but actually shows a scene from Ukraine in March 2022.
Our verdict
Correct.
Photograph of crowded railway station is from Ukraine in March 2022
15 March 2022
Several posts shared thousands of times on Facebook show a black-and-white photograph of a crowded railway station in Ukraine. The captions read: “This is not a photo from 1941. This is a Photo from March 2022 with all the colour taken out. A chilling reminder that history repeats…”
The image has been flagged by some Facebook users as potentially false.
While the appearance may be reminiscent of scenes from the Second World War, the photograph being shared is genuine and shows a scene from Kharkiv railway station. Full-colour versions of the photo have been shared widely and appear to date to early March 2022.
Kharkiv has been the target of Russian attacks during the war and the scene shows people attempting to leave the city. Millions of people have already fled the country as refugees.
Fact checkers at Snopes have investigated the origins of the photo in depth. It has been reported the image was shared with journalists by an aide to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The crowded scenes at Kharkiv railway station have also been captured in multiple other images.
Image courtesy of Olga Pavlovsky on Flickr
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 true because the photograph shows exactly what is being claimed.