Assessing footage after plane destroyed in rebel-held DR Congo

Peter Mwai

BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, X

We have been looking at video footage said to show the wreckage of a small plane on fire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which is reported to have been bombed while on the ground by the country’s air force in a rebel-held area.

The Congo River Alliance (AFC), an alliance of several rebel groups (including the M23), says the plane had been transporting humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, destined for Minembwe in South Kivu province when it was hit.

The incident comes just few days after the DR Congo and Rwanda – accused of backing the M23 rebels – signed a peace agreement in Washington.

Satellite imagery in the area is very patchy and old, which makes it challenging to find an exact match for what we see in the video.

But by using two images of the wreckage filmed during daytime – which began appearing online today – we can draw matches between the wreckage of the plane and the positioning of the debris.

We also get a clearer view of a mountain range in the background, roughly seen in the early morning video, which matches with the mountain we see in the background from the Minembwe airstrip.

This, however, does not mean the footage is verified, as we haven’t yet isolated the exact location where the wreckage was filmed.

It is not clear where the plane was flying from and the Congolese government says it wasn’t registered. We have done reverse image search to be sure the video and images are current.

Fact-checkers getting ready for PMQs

Anthony Reuben

BBC Verify senior journalist

BBC Verify carries out fact-checking while Prime Minister’s Questions is taking place in the House of Commons. I’ve been speaking to senior journalist Tamara Kovacevic about what they do.

How do you prep ahead of PMQs?

We try to fact-check claims made at PMQs as quickly as possible and the key to being able to do that is preparing in advance. We try to identify which topics might come up and what specific claims might be made by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. We look at what the evidence is for each claim, including what we can find from publicly available data.

How do you identify what the likely topics are going to be?

We check for claims that Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have made on social media or in recent interviews, we stay across party press releases and other announcements and we also talk to our colleagues in Westminster. In the past week there has been plenty of talk about the government’s defence strategy and the numbers of people arriving in the UK on small boats, so we’ll be preparing for questions about those.

How is the team assigned?

Today we have a team of four who will all listen to PMQs and post claims in our internal chat as we hear them. Once we decide which claims to check – wrong or misleading ones are the priority – we’ll listen back to double check the exact wording to quote. The journalist who prepared that topic in advance will write the post and the editor will check it and sign off before publication.

What is the most challenging aspect of it all?

There are often claims that are not clearly wrong or right. We also get claims we haven’t prepared for. We have to work at speed to check them against all the available information and – if we can’t find any evidence for the claim – we may have to contact the politician who made it to ask them for their sources.

‘Stop playing dirty games,’ say Ukrainian officials in strongly-worded statement

Paul Adams

Diplomatic correspondent, reporting from Kyiv

Ukrainian officials have responded angrily to Russian suggestions that Ukraine is holding up an agreed prisoner swap.

The latest statement from Ukraine’s Coordination HQ for prisoners of war (POWs) says that earlier Russian comments “do not correspond to reality or to previous agreements — neither regarding the prisoner exchange nor the repatriation of bodies”.

The Coordination HQ says that teams from both sides have been working on the repatriation of bodies and an exchange of POWs since the two sides last met in Istanbul on Monday.

It says that Ukraine has submitted its lists, according to clearly defined categories (severely wounded, ill, young servicemen, etc) but that Russia has submitted “alternative lists that do not correspond to the agreed-upon approach”.

On the repatriation of bodies, Ukraine says agreement has been reached, but no date set. It says that Russia “undertook unilateral steps that had not been coordinated within the joint process”.

“Unfortunately, instead of constructive dialogue, we are once again faced with manipulations and attempts to exploit sensitive humanitarian issues for informational purposes,” the statement says.

It ends by urging Russia to “stop playing dirty games” and to implement an agreement “clearly and without delay in the coming days”.

Zelensky calls for accountability after deadly Russian strikes

Image source, Reuters

Three rescue workers have been killed and dozens of people injured by overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine, in one of Moscow’s largest aerial attacks of the war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia “must be held accountable” for the strikes, which he says targeted “almost all of Ukraine” – including the capital, Kyiv.

Ukrainian authorities say Moscow used over 400 drones and more than 40 missiles overnight. Meanwhile, Russia says it intercepted 174 Ukrainian drones and three Ukrainian missiles over the Black Sea.

It comes after US President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin had vowed to respond to Ukraine’s surprise Operation Spider’s Web drone attacks on Russian airfields earlier this week.

We’re ending our live coverage for now. You can read more in our news story.

More verification to come as Iran and Israel trade attacks

Anthony Reuben

BBC Verify senior journalist

We’re closing our live page but it’s not the end of the day for the team.

The late team will be contributing to coverage of the conflict between Iran and Israel on this live page.

They’ll mainly be watching for new videos coming out, with reports of explosions in both countries continuing. This video, external, showing a blast in Shahin Shahr, Iran, has been verified although it’s not clear what exactly was struck at the site.

We’ll also be keeping across the movements of US tanker aircraft into Europe.

You can find coverage of the final day of the summit of G7 leaders in Canada here.