Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We headlined today’s BBC Verify Live page on satellite imagery showing damage caused by a Ukrainian strike to Russian industrial facility reportedly used to manufacture of Iskander ballistic missiles.

Click here to see the picture for yourself and here’s why an expert told us that the attack is “significant but not critical”.

We’ve also verified images showing a shopping centre on fire in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia after a wave of Russian strikes overnight.

Away from Ukraine, we’ve been tracking the world’s largest warship, USS Gerald R Ford, after it departed the Greek Island of Crete and appears to be heading towards the Middle East.

Plus, we’ve been sent this video of US fighter jets taking off from RAF Lakenheath. Here’s what we know about them.

Join us back here tomorrow for more from the BBC Verify team.

Richard Irvine-Brown and Alex Murray
BBC Verify

An expert has told BBC Verify that US Air Force F-22 fighter jets filmed by aviation enthusiasts leaving RAF Lakenheath this week could form part of an "air dominance machine” against Iran.

Video shared with BBC Verify shows three F-22s, considered one of the world's most advanced fighter jets, taking off from the Suffolk air base on Tuesday.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing US officials, that F-22 fighters were on their way to Israel and that some had already arrived.

Justin Crump, CEO of risk intelligence firm Sibylline, said it was notable these planes were in Israel because it suggested the jets might play "a possible role against cruise missiles or drones" in the Middle East.

He added their use might even be "overkill for the tasks at hand" because Iran has "little effective air force" to defend itself.

“Many observers are seeing them primarily as a signal - the US is sending its very best, knowing this will attract attention,” Crump said.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ve been reporting today on satellite imagery showing significant damage after a Ukrainian strike to a Russian industrial facility reportedly used for the manufacture of Iskander ballistic missiles, frequently used against targets in Ukraine.

Miko Vranic, from the military intelligence team at the defence intelligence company Janes, told BBC Verify the Votkinsk plant is “likely of great importance to Russia's ballistic missile production”.

“However, while the strike was significant it does not appear to have been critical,” he said.

The Iskander missiles manufactured here are an important weapon in Russia’s military arsenal, Vranic added, because they are very hard to intercept and can be armed with both conventional and potentially nuclear payloads.

Without knowing precisely what was damaged during the strike, Vranic added it is hard to predict how long the repairs will take, but “the repair will likely have a high priority of importance in the production chain”.

Image source, Getty Images

Aisha Sembhi
BBC Verify journalist

A call to a news program in the US from a man identifying himself as John Barron has sparked viral claims that US President Donald Trump himself was on the line.

But we got in touch with C-SPAN, who say it wasn't Trump.

BBC Verify has looked into why so many people believed it was Trump who’d made the call. Have a watch below:

Tom Gould
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve verified images showing major damage to two shopping centres in Zaporizhzhia overnight, following a wave of at least 20 Russian strikes on the city in south-eastern Ukraine.

The attacks injured eight people, including an eight-year-old boy, according to Zaporizhzhia’s regional head Ivan Federov.

In this image, released by Zaporizhzhia’s regional military administration, the Epicenter mall in the west of the city is seen in flames.

Image source, Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration

Another video shows shattered shop fronts at the Ukraina shopping mall in the city centre. The strikes also reportedly damaged residential buildings.

The strikes were part of large number of Russian attacks on eight regions of Ukraine overnight, which President Volodymyr Zelensky said involved a total 420 drones and 39 missiles targeting energy infrastructure and residential areas.

Thomas Copeland and Joshua Cheetham
BBC Verify

An image widely shared online claiming to show the woman who Mexican authorities tracked to find the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader was actually created with AI.

Mexico’s Defence Secretary Ricardo Trevilla said on Monday that Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known “El Mencho”, was killed in a capture operation after authorities followed a romantic partner that he was due to meet.

The AI fake supposedly shows this woman after being captured by the CJNG. One post with the picture, which has gathered more than four million views on X, claims that the woman was handed over to the drug cartel by her brother.

We’ve checked the full image using Google’s SynthID watermark detector, which found it was generated or edited with Google AI.

The woman in the picture is based on a real photograph released by Argentinian police in December of an alleged scam artist and widely reported by local media. In the original image her eyes are covered with a black bar, but in this case it appears AI was used to generate what they might look like.

The CJNG cartel member appears to be entirely made using AI and the deformed text on his jacket is a common indicator of AI generation.

Richard Irvine-Brown, Barbara Metzler and Alex Murray
BBC Verify

Image source, Reuters

USS Gerald R Ford, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, has left the Greek Island of Crete and appears to be heading towards the Middle East.

Video filmed from a beach near Souda Bay where the US warship had been for several days shows the Ford sailing north-east into the Mediterranean this morning.

BBC Verify’s analysis indicates that, if it travels at a cruising speed of about 20 knots, the vessel will take about a day to reach the eastern Mediterranean near Israel’s coast.

Justin Crump, CEO of risk and intelligence firm Sibylline, told BBC Verify the Ford could remain in the eastern Mediterranean to "backstop operations" over Syria, Iraq and Israel. But that it is also possible the Ford’s carrier strike group could travel through the Suez Canal in Egypt and enter the Red Sea.

Separately, we have also identified the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and six other warships in satellite imagery taken on Wednesday, 25 February, about 200 km (125 miles) off Oman’s coast.

Image source, Sentinel-2, Copernicus

Thomas Spencer
BBC Verify researcher

CCTV footage posted on Telegram appears to show the moment a Ukrainian long-range missile struck a Russian missile factory on 21 February.

In the video, which is a recording of a screen playing the CCTV in which a person can be heard talking in the background, we can make out a missile-shaped projectile heading for a building, followed by a fireball.

Using the shape and features of the building in the footage, as well as the layout of overhead pipe structures and fencing, we confirmed the position of the CCTV camera and the building we’ve seen damaged in satellite images.

Analysts from intelligence firm MAIAR have also assessed that this camera is located at the factory site and that the detonation of the Flamingo missile’s 1,150kg (2,500lb) warhead has likely caused “significant damage inside the plant”.

Thomas Spencer
BBC Verify researcher

Satellite imagery shows significant damage to an industrial facility deep inside Russia, reportedly used to manufacture ballistic missiles, following a Ukrainian strike.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that the military factory was hit with a domestically produced FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile on 21 February.

Ukrainian media has reported the factory in Votkinsk, a town in Russia’s central Udmurt Republic around 1,400km (870 miles) from Ukraine’s border, is used to manufacture Iskander missiles regularly used in attacks on cities in Ukraine.

We showed satellite imagery - captured by Vantor on 22 February and shared with BBC Verify - to experts from intelligence analysis firm MAIAR, who concluded extensive damage at the plant was likely the result of a Flamingo strike.

Adam Durbin
BBC Verify Live senior journalist

BBC Verify has reviewed satellite images which show a Russian missile factory has been hit by a Ukrainian long-range strike. Reports from Ukraine say were carried out using a domestically produced missile and experts who reviewed the images say it shows extensive damage to the plant, which is about 1,400km (870 miles) from the Russian-Ukrainian border.

We’re also monitoring the ongoing build-up of US military assets near Iran, after images show USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier leaving waters off the Greek island of Crete on route to the eastern Mediterranean. We’re speaking to experts about when it may arrive in the Middle East, as well as getting a sense of the amount of firepower Washington has amassed in the region.

Plus, the team has debunked a false claim that a powerful Mexican cartel has captured a woman accused of helping authorities track down its leader, leading to his death. We’ll show you how AI was used to spread the misinformation by manipulating an image of a different woman detained previously by authorities in Argentina.