Financial Times (FT) Claimed X's post includes a graphic showing Wagner's forces in Mali.

Verdict: False

The photo shows French troops in 2013. The FT has deleted the tweet and Facebook post and published a correction.

Fact check:

The Wagner group suffered heavy losses after fighting Tuareg rebels in northern Mali, the report said. The Wall Street JournalAccording to the media report, dozens of Russian mercenaries were killed during the fighting and others were taken prisoner.

FT Tweets and Facebook post Accompanied by an image of an armed man wearing a mask, the text reads: “Russia's Wagner Group has suffered heavy losses on the battlefields of Mali.”

The image does not show any Wagner Group mercenaries. The soldiers in the image have the French flag emblem on their uniforms. FAMAS rifle A variant used by the French military. Vehicle pictured. Appearance The ERC-90 is an armored vehicle that France plans to phase out in 2022.

Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact discovered that the image shows French troops stationed in Mali in 2013, according to the image description. Getty Images. (Related article: Was the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower attacked by Houthi rebels?)

“A French Foreign Legion soldier wearing a skeleton mask stands next to an armoured vehicle on the streets of Nionne on January 20, 2013,” the image's caption reads.

The FT deleted the tweet after receiving an enquiry from Check Your Fact. A FT spokesperson told Check Your Fact:[we] “We have issued a correction,” he wrote, linking to the tweet.

Correction: An earlier tweet on this subject mistakenly posted an older image from Mali. https://t.co/9LwgSAShIL

— Financial Times (@FT) July 31, 2024

“CORRECTION: An older image from Mali was mistakenly posted in a previous tweet about this incident,” the tweet read.