What was claimed
A new Covid-19 vaccine was tested on fit young military men. Of the 15 tested, 8 went to intensive care, 3 on ventilators and 5 people, four of them servicemen, are dead.
Our verdict
This is not true.
Ukrainian soldiers have not died after having an American Covid-19 vaccine
25 August 2020
A Facebook page has shared a status and several images claiming that four Ukrainian servicemen and one other person have died while taking part in a Covid-19 vaccine and medication trial.
There is no evidence this is the case, and Ukraine’s Armed Forces Medical Service Corps has refuted the claims.
The website that first seemed to report this claim is called “Lugansk Media Centre”. The website consists of statements from sources such as the “Lugansk People’s Republic People’s Militia press service” and the “Lugansk People’s Republic Healthcare ministry”.
Luhansk is a region of Ukraine, which declared itself independent after the 2014 uprising. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office advises against travel there because of “ongoing clashes between Ukrainian armed forces and Russian-backed armed separatists”.
The article claims that: “The total of 15 volunteers were exposed to the vaccine and medication produced by Americal [sic] virologists in the Kharkov region. Eight of the volunteers were soon transferred to intensive care units, three were put on ventilation.”
None of this is true. Ukrainian fact checking website Stop Fake was told by head of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Medical Service Corps media relations Oleksiy Mazepa, that the story is fake.
Mr Mazepa also told fact checkers at AFP: “There are no tests with our soldiers. This is obvious fake news. This is the way Russian propaganda works.”
According to Ukraine’s military, as of 21 August, there had been 1,365 Covid-19 cases in the military, and of those there were six deaths.
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 false because there is no evidence that the claims are true.