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← All fact checksMorning run · November 6, 2026 · #10 by reach
ConflictPoliticsQuote attribution

Did Trump say "Russia is losing civilians also" when asked about Putin killing Ukrainian civilians?

Is Ukraine also killing Russian civilians, as Trump said on Nov 5 when asked about Putin's attacks on Ukrainian civilians?

True, but…

The quote is real and accurately transcribed; the comparison inside it overstates parity in civilian deaths.

Yes. In the Oval Office on 5 November 2026, asked whether he had raised Putin's killing of Ukrainian civilians with Putin's envoy, Trump said he raises it "the other way" too and that "Russia is losing civilians also". The clip is genuine footage and the quote is accurate. His comparison of civilian losses is misleading: UN-verified Ukrainian civilian deaths are roughly 16,000, against about 1,700 inside Russia.

+3Sources ↓Original post ↗
Genuine
The post as it circulated, labelled by our media check.Video · 0:46 · 1280×720

Claims

✓ 1 true

When asked whether he raised Putin's killing of Ukrainian civilians in apartments, buses and schools with Putin's envoy, Trump replied that he always raises it "the other way" because "the other way they kill too" and that "Russia is losing civilians also".123

✓ TrueCentral claimHigh confidence

The quotation is accurate. The Associated Press, HuffPost's S.V. Dáte (who asked the question), the Anchorage Daily News and other outlets all report the same exchange from the 5 November 2026 Oval Office appearance, and the video's audio matches the reported words. That matters because the post's value rests entirely on whether Trump said this on camera: if the clip were edited or the caption paraphrased into something stronger, the story would collapse. It doesn't. Three independent newsrooms working from the same pool feed transcribed the same phrasing, and the setting matches AP's account of Trump signing an executive order in the Oval Office that day. A reader should weigh two things. First, the caption is a fair transcript, not a spin on the words. Second, confirming that someone said something is not the same as confirming that what they said is true. Here the quote is real and the comparison inside it is the part that needs testing, which is the next claim.

Russia is "losing civilians also", implying a comparable level of civilian suffering on both sides.45

~ MisleadingHigh confidence

Literally, the sentence is true: civilians inside Russia have been killed in this war. As a comparison, it misleads. The UN human rights office has verified roughly 16,000 civilians killed in Ukraine since February 2022, and says the real figure is likely higher. Independent Russian counting by Novaya Gazeta Europe puts civilian deaths inside Russia's internationally recognised borders at about 1,700 by the end of August 2026. Even Moscow's own inflated figures, which include occupied Ukrainian territory, sit around 8,000. Those are not comparable tolls, and the gap widens further once cause is considered: it was Russia that launched the full-scale invasion, and UN investigators have found deliberate Russian targeting of Ukrainian civilians, including drone attacks in Kherson judged crimes against humanity. The words "also" and "the other way" do the work of implying symmetry. That is why we rate the statement misleading rather than false: the phrasing is technically defensible and substantively slanted. The decisive evidence is the casualty data from two independent directions, UN monitoring on one side and Russian-region counts on the other.

Still open: The input does not break the Russian-side figure down by cause, so we cannot say how many of those deaths resulted from Ukrainian attacks rather than other causes.

Between the two sides, 25,000 people are being killed per month.6

– UnverifiableModerate confidence

No independent source in our material verifies a combined monthly death toll of 25,000. Trump has repeated the figure for months while the number shifts: he reportedly said 31,000 the previous month and 25,000 on average in January 2026. A figure that moves with the telling is a weak basis for a factual claim. The number also does not fit what can be counted. UN-verified civilian deaths in Ukraine run at roughly 200 to 300 a month, so 25,000 a month can only be a loose estimate of military losses on both sides, which neither government publishes reliably in wartime. We therefore rate it unverifiable rather than false: we cannot show the number is wrong, but we can show nobody independent has confirmed it and the speaker's own versions disagree. Readers should treat round, repeated, shifting casualty numbers from political leaders as rhetorical rather than statistical.

Still open: The input does not establish where Trump's figure originates or whether any government briefing supplies it.

What was posted

X

Journalist Aaron Rupar posted a short clip on X of President Donald Trump taking questions at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. The post quotes the exchange in its caption: a reporter asks whether Trump raised Putin's killing of Ukrainian civilians in apartments, buses and schools, and Trump answers that he raises it "the other way" too. The post presents the exchange as newsworthy on its own terms, with the caption doing the framing.

“Q: Putin right now kills Ukrainian civilians in their apartments, on buses, in schools. Did you bring that up? TRUMP: I did bring that up, and I always bring it up the other way. The other way they kill too. Russia is losing civilians also”

Posted on X by journalist Aaron Rupar, who regularly clips and posts broadcast and pool footage of Trump's remarks. The video is White House pool feed from the 5 November 2026 Oval Office appearance.

Who posted it

X
@atrupar

1.1M followers · Account 15.5 years old

View the account on X ↗

Account check

Looks like a genuine account62%
Likelihood of automation4%

Estimates from public signals — account age, posting pattern, audience — not a judgement of the person behind the account, and separate from whether this post is true.

What stood out

  • Handle @atrupar belongs to Aaron Rupar, a well-documented independent US politics journalist and publisher of the Public Notice newsletter (formerly Vox).
  • Account is long-established (opened April 2011) with ~1.1 million followers; widely cited by mainstream outlets (Mediaite, Newsweek, Fox News, Hindustan Times, C-SPAN) in 2026 coverage.
  • Identity authenticity is high: same handle is consistently referenced across platforms (Bluesky atrupar.com, journa.host, Public Notice site) and by press, so identity spoofing is unlikely.
  • Posting pattern is human-driven and extremely high-volume (NYT profile: spends ~80 hours/week monitoring and clipping Trump); no evidence of automation or coordinated inauthentic networks.
  • Sourcing is generally primary (C-SPAN and live video embeds), but framing is openly partisan and has repeatedly drawn context criticism — e.g. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale in Oct 2026 said a Rupar clip 'more obviously takes him out of context'; 2021 Jay Baker/Atlanta spa clip was widely criticized as misleading.
  • Documented platform-history events are political rather than authenticity-related: a 7-day X suspension in Dec 2022 over linking to an ElonJet Facebook page, later reversed.
  • Missing bio/follower/verification fields in the supplied metadata appear to be data-collection gaps rather than signs of a fake account; the live profile is self-described 'journalist' with a newsletter link.
Signals (9)+
Account created
2011-04
Follower ratio
High (approx 5.6k following vs 1.13M followers)
Identity confirmed by
Public Notice about page; C-SPAN person page; Mediaite; Newsweek; Fox News; New York Times profile (Apr 2026); Bluesky/journa.host cross-links
Posting cadence
Very high, human-driven clip-and-commentary workflow
Notable news coverage
Recurring 2026 coverage of feud with White House Rapid Response 47 account
Fact check history
Criticised for decontextualised clips (Daniel Dale, Oct 2026; Jay Baker clip, Mar 2021; 2020 flu/grandfather 'gotcha')
Platform sanctions
7-day X suspension Dec 2022 (ElonJet link), reinstated after public backlash
Partisanship
Self-described lifelong liberal Democrat; opinionated framing but disclosed
Coordinated inauthentic behavior
None found

Account checked November 4, 2026, 02:48 UTC

The media

Video
GenuinePresented as real footage· The claim depends on it

✓ What is genuine

The video is genuine White House pool footage of Trump at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office on 5 November 2026. The audio is his voice and the quoted words are what he said on camera.

The tells

  • ●●● Strong signal Our detector scored the clip at 0.99999 probability of not being AI-generated, with a deepfake score of about 0.006.our detector
  • ●●○ Supporting signal Framing, lighting and shadows stay consistent across consecutive frames, with no morphing or lip-sync drift.our visual review
  • ●●○ Supporting signal White House pool markers appear in frame, including boom mics, long lenses and the "TEXT POTUS TO 45470" lower-third graphic.our visual review
  • ●●● Strong signal The words on the audio match the transcripts published by independent outlets covering the same appearance.AP and other outlets

Synthetic-media detector

Detector ran

The claim stands or falls on whether the media is real, so the detector ran.

AI-generated likelihood0%
Deepfake likelihood1%

Scores are the detector’s estimate for the file as uploaded. A low score does not rule out editing, a spliced caption, or footage shown out of context — those are judged above. Model v3.

How we checked the media

  • Reviewed keyframes of the video by eye: continuous White House pool scene, Oval Office setting, boom mics and long lenses, the "TEXT POTUS TO 45470" lower-third graphic, presidential and service flags, and consistent lighting and framing across consecutive frames.
  • Compared the scene with AP's account and photograph of Trump in the Oval Office on 5 November 2026.
  • Checked that the audio matches the words reported by independent outlets.
  • Ran our AI-detection model on the video; it scored the clip as overwhelmingly not AI-generated.

Sources

6 sources reviewed

Further reading

  • 1Associated Press The most complete wire account of the day, including who Trump did and did not meet and the full quoted answer.
  • 4Interfax-Ukraine Supplies the UN-verified Ukrainian civilian casualty figures that make the comparison misleading.
  • 5Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty) The independent Russian-side casualty counts that give Trump's sentence its narrow kernel of truth.

The full story

This is not a fabricated quote or a doctored clip. On 5 November 2026, Trump met Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House but not the visiting Ukrainian delegation, according to the Associated Press. In the Oval Office that day he took questions from reporters, signed an executive order and predicted a "big, beautiful agreement" involving more than Ukraine.

HuffPost's S.V. Dáte asked whether he had raised Putin's targeting of Ukrainian civilians in apartments, buses and schools. Trump said he had, and that he always raises it "the other way" too: "The other way they kill too... Russia is losing civilians also." He went on to describe the war as a bloodbath costing "25,000 people a month" and said it had to end.

So the quote is real. The kernel of truth in the follow-up claim is narrow but genuine: Russian civilians have been killed. Belgorod's governor has published casualty data, and Novaya Gazeta Europe counts about 1,700 civilian deaths inside Russia by the end of August 2026. What does not hold is the implication of balance. UN monitors have verified roughly 16,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths, a toll they say is probably higher, and UN investigators have documented deliberate Russian attacks on civilians, including Kherson drone strikes judged crimes against humanity. The word "also" turns a small true fact into a false picture of symmetry.

Kernel of truth

Civilians inside Russia have been killed in the war, so the sentence "Russia is losing civilians also" is literally true. The misleading part is the comparison it implies.

Timeline

  1. February 2022

    Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine; UN human rights monitors begin recording civilian casualties, which reach at least 15,850 killed by the time of this check. 4Interfax-Ukraine

  2. November 5, 2026

    In the Oval Office, Trump meets Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev but not visiting Ukrainian officials, and tells reporters he raises civilian killings "both ways" and that "Russia is losing civilians also". 1Associated Press

  3. November 6, 2026

    Journalist Aaron Rupar's clip of the exchange circulates on X, prompting this check.

How it was framed

Misleading content

The clip is authentic and the quotation is accurate, but the comparison Trump offers frames the war as roughly symmetrical in civilian suffering. That framing is used to mislead about who is being killed and in what numbers, without any fabricated footage or invented quote.

  • “Visual proof”. The post is raw video of the President speaking at the Resolute Desk, which invites the reader to treat the words as self-evidently newsworthy.
  • Missing context. The caption stops at "Russia is losing civilians also" and does not include any casualty comparison, so the reader has no numbers to weigh the sentence against.
  • Emotional language. The reporter's question uses concrete images: "in their apartments, on buses, in schools."
  • Us vs. them. Trump frames the war as killings happening "the other way" and "on both sides", setting the two sides against each other as equivalent.

Posted on X by journalist Aaron Rupar, who regularly posts clips of Trump's public remarks. The underlying footage is White House pool video from the 5 November 2026 Oval Office appearance, and the caption reproduces the exchange as a transcript.

Bias

NoneSlightModerateStrong

Leans downplays Russian responsibility for civilian harm through false equivalence. The captured remarks frame Russia as an equal victim of civilian violence despite Russia having launched the invasion, and they offer no acknowledgement of the documented pattern of Russian strikes on Ukrainian homes, buses, schools and hospitals. The journalist sharing the clip presents it critically rather than endorsing that framing.

Bias describes how the post frames its message — the slant of the language, selection and emphasis — and is judged separately from whether the claim is true. A true claim can still be framed with a strong slant.

How we checked

55 s
  1. 1

    Searched for independent coverage of the quoted exchange and Trump's remarks at the Oval Office on 5 November 2026.

  2. 2

    Compared the caption and transcript against reporting from the Associated Press, HuffPost and the Anchorage Daily News.

  3. 3

    Searched for UN human rights office figures on civilian casualties in Ukraine since February 2022.

  4. 4

    Searched for independent counts of civilian deaths inside Russia, including regional data and Novaya Gazeta Europe's tally.

  5. 5

    Searched for the origin and consistency of Trump's "25,000 people a month" casualty figure.

  6. 6

    Reviewed keyframes of the video by eye for continuity, setting and pool markers.

  7. 7

    Ran our AI-detection model on the video and recorded its scores.

✓ Claim checked✓ Media checked✓ Sources checked

Why 87% confidence

High

We rate the headline HIGH because the quotation is confirmed by multiple independent newsrooms working from the same pool footage, and because the casualty comparison rests on UN monitoring plus independent Russian-region counts pointing the same way. The unverifiable casualty figure carries only MODERATE confidence: nobody has confirmed it, but nobody has disproved it either.

Limits. We did not open the underlying pages ourselves; our record of their content comes from search results and snippets. We had no independent breakdown of how civilians inside Russia were killed, and no access to the original pool report beyond what outlets published.

What we don’t know

  • What exactly Trump and Kirill Dmitriev discussed in their meeting, beyond Trump's own account to reporters.
  • Where the "25,000 people a month" figure comes from and whether any official briefing supplies it.
  • How many of the roughly 1,700 civilian deaths inside Russia were caused by Ukrainian attacks rather than other causes.
  • Whether the full unedited pool video differs in any way from the clip Rupar posted, beyond the trimmed length.

Spot it yourself

Find the overstatement

Looks suspicious, isn’t proof

  • The post comes from a journalist known for critical clips of Trump. That tells you about selection, not about whether the words were spoken.
  • The caption is short and stops at a punchy line. Short captions are common in clip posts and prove nothing about accuracy.
  • The clip is a vertical social-media cut of pool footage, which can look informal. Format is not evidence of tampering.

The actual evidence

  • Independent newsrooms, including the AP, transcribed the same exchange from the same appearance, so the words are confirmed.
  • Our AI-detection model scored the video as overwhelmingly not AI-generated, and the frames show a coherent, continuous pool feed.
  • UN-verified Ukrainian civilian deaths (about 16,000) and independent Russian-side counts (about 1,700) show the comparison in the quote is not supported by the numbers.
  • UN investigators have documented deliberate Russian targeting of Ukrainian civilians, which the "both sides" framing leaves out.
  1. 1

    Separate the quote from the claim inside it

    Ask two questions in order: did the person actually say this, and is what they said true? Here the answer is yes, then partly no.

  2. 2

    Look for the comparison word

    Words like "also", "both sides" and "the other way" are where balance gets implied. Find the numbers that would have to support the comparison.

  3. 3

    Go to the monitors, not the politicians

    For casualty claims in a war, check the UN human rights office's published figures and independent local counts rather than either government's statements.

  4. 4

    Check the source video's origin

    Look for pool markers, lower-third graphics and setting details, then see whether major outlets report the same appearance on the same date.

Takeaway

A genuine video of a genuine quote can still carry a misleading claim. Verify the clip and the substance separately, because confirming someone said something tells you nothing about whether it is true.

Questions people ask

Did Trump really say "Russia is losing civilians also"?+

Yes. In the Oval Office on 5 November 2026, asked whether he had raised Putin's killing of Ukrainian civilians with Putin's envoy, Trump said he brings it up "the other way" too and that "Russia is losing civilians also". The Associated Press and other outlets report the same words, and the video is genuine pool footage.

Is it true that Russia is losing civilians?+

Civilians inside Russia have been killed, so the sentence is literally true. But the numbers are far apart: the UN has verified about 16,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths since February 2022, while independent Russian counts put civilian deaths inside Russia at roughly 1,700. The comparison implies a balance the data does not support.

Is the video real or AI-generated?+

It is real. Our AI-detection model scored it as overwhelmingly not AI-generated, and our visual review found a continuous White House pool feed with consistent framing, lighting and pool markers matching AP's account of the same Oval Office appearance. The words on the audio match independent transcripts.

Did Trump meet Ukrainian officials that day?+

According to the Associated Press, Trump met Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House on 5 November 2026 but did not meet the visiting Ukrainian delegation. He also predicted a "big, beautiful agreement" involving more than Ukraine.

What does it mean when a fact-check says a claim is "true but misleading"?+

It means the words were really spoken and each part is technically defensible, but the impression they create is not supported by the evidence. Here the quote is accurate; the suggestion of comparable civilian suffering on both sides is what misleads.

Go deeper

Misleading content
Genuine information used in a way that frames an issue or person unfairly, without anything being fabricated.
Pool footage
Video and photos shared among news organisations covering an event such as a presidential appearance, so they all work from the same feed.
OHCHR
The UN human rights office, which publishes verified counts of civilian casualties in conflicts such as Ukraine.
Crimes against humanity
A category of serious international offence covering widespread or systematic attacks on a civilian population, as UN investigators applied to Russian drone strikes in Kherson.
Unverifiable
A claim that cannot currently be confirmed or disproved with available evidence, as opposed to one shown to be false.

People also search for

Trump Russia is losing civilians alsoTrump other way they kill too Putin civiliansTrump Oval Office Putin envoy Ukrainian civilians apartments buses schoolsTrump 25,000 people a month bloodbath quote"I also bring it up the other way" Trump
For educators+
Verification versus truth: confirming a quote is only the first stepMisleading content and the use of "both sides" framingSourcing casualty data from monitoring bodies rather than governmentsHow AI-detection tools fit into a media investigation, and what they cannot tell you
  • Trump's sentence "Russia is losing civilians also" is literally true. At what point does a literally true statement become misleading, and who decides?
  • Which sources would you trust to count civilian deaths in a war, and why might governments on either side publish different numbers?
  • If a genuine video can carry a misleading claim, what should a reader check before sharing a clip like this one?

About this check

Platform
X
Posted by
@atrupar
Posted
November 5, 2026
Age when checked
Under 24 hours old when checked
Where it spread
United States
Audience
US audience
Language
EN
Status
● Post is live
Verified
November 6, 2026, 03:10 UTC
Published
November 6, 2026, 03:10 UTC

Reach. 1,341 likes, 395 replies (X syndication, 2026-11-06 ~03:00Z); embedded in HuffPost live blog

This verdict was generated with AI from the sources shown. AI can make mistakes — check the sources before relying on it.

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