In late April 2022, posts shared hundreds of times on Facebook in Polish and other languages claimed to show photo evidence of staged violence in Bucha, Ukraine, after the area was occupied by Russian forces.

The posts showed a news photo of overturned and damaged vehicles in front of a building where the windows were intact. They implied that the scene had been staged -- unsuccessfully -- to suggest a bomb had gone off nearby.

What really happened outside the building? One of AFP's Warsaw-based journalists was able to find out, even though her colleagues were no longer in the area. Using online tools, she pinpointed the location and made contacts on the ground who helped her discover how the vehicles were damaged.