Claim: A serving army general of Sweden, the richest country in the world, was photographed travelling home on a train.
Fact: The picture does not show a Swedish military officer, as confirmed by the Swedish Armed Forces. He is not a military officer of the rank of a general either but a Czech Army officer, possibly a staff warrant officer, second lieutenant, major or lieutenant colonel, who was travelling on the Prague Metro.
On 4 September 2024, Soch Fact Check received a WhatsApp message containing the screenshot of a post by X (formerly Twitter) user @FrankfurtPK.
The post includes a picture of a person, apparently a military officer, sitting in a public transport service, possibly a metro or a tram, alongside an elderly woman. The accompanying caption reads as follows:
“دنیا کے امیر ترین ملک سویڈن کا حاضر سروس جنرل ٹرین میں بیٹھ کر اپنے گھر جا رہا ہے۔ سویڈن ایک ایسا ملک ہے جس کی عالمی شہرت ٹیکس کی زیادہ شرح اور معاشرتی برابری کے تصور سے جڑی ہے لیکن اب یہ ملک یورپ میں امیر ترین لوگوں کی آماجگاہ بن رہا ہے۔ @OfficialDGISPR
[A serving general of Sweden, the richest country in the world, is going home on the train. Sweden is a country whose global reputation is tied to high tax rates and the concept of social equality, but now it is becoming home to some of the richest people in Europe. @OfficialDGISPR]”.
The X handle @OfficialDGISPR is of the director-general of the Pakistan Army’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
The post in the screenshot — available here (archive) — appears to comment on the alleged differences between the private lives of foreign military officers and those in Pakistan. @FrankfurtPK appears to be a supporter of former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, as evident from their profile picture.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched the image but did not find the source of the picture.
We then looked for images of the Swedish military’s uniforms and found that they do not match the one in the viral photo. This is evident from a photo of Swedish Armed Forces Defence Chief Gen Micael Bydén on the Försvarsmakten’s website.
We reached out to the Swedish Armed Forces, who confirmed that the uniform seen in the image in question is not Swedish.
Soch Fact Check also spoke to the team of Källkritikbyrån, a Swedish fact-checking outlet accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). The man “is not a Swedish military person”, they said, adding that there is no subway in Sweden that looks like the one in the viral photo.
Prague Metro
On the other hand, when we narrowed down our reverse image search to just different portions of the visual, we were led to photographs of the Prague Metro, which appears to have the same interior arrangement, patterned seat covers, and red-coloured grab poles. This was corroborated by images available here, here, here, here, and here.
We also came across a similar image used as the thumbnail photo of a song on SoundCloud, which led us to more footage of the Prague Metro, available here and here and credited to Viktor Lom, whose Instagram profile says they do photoshoots in Prague, Europe.
Videos of Prague Metro available on YouTube here, here, and here also show seat covers matching the ones in the viral photo. The second of the aforementioned clips was posted by Čestmír Titov, who, according to the details on their Facebook account, is from Prague.
Moreover, the 17th picture available in a 20 February 2017 post, titled “Prague – Metro & Tram,” on Robert Schwandl’s Urban Rail blog shows seat covers matching the ones in the viral photo. Schwandl wrote, “Prague started quite early to refurbish all older Russian trains which now run on lines A and B. […] in the case of Prague, the new front seems to fit. Also the interior looks pleasant, although I find the seats to be a bit too L-shaped, i.e. not really comfortable for me.”
An X post from 2021 also shows the same seat covers of Prague Metro. The word “Praha” in the caption is the Czech name for the city of Prague.
Additionally, we reached out to the IFCN-accredited Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC) and Swedish fact-checkers associated with Logically Facts, also a signatory of the IFCN.
Christian Haag of Logically Facts agreed that the man in question is “highly unlikely” to be a Swedish military general but added that his attempt to ascertain if the image was manipulated did not yield any adequate results.
The BIC, an independent media outlet that operates in exile, provided us with some relevant research expertise that helped us pinpoint the exact army the uniform belongs to. They confirmed that the public transport is, in fact, the Prague Metro and it appears to be the Škoda 81-71M railroad car seen on the Lines A and B as “the design is identical”.
The outlet said the man in the image is most likely a Czech military officer as the uniform of Czech Defence Attaché Colonel Jiří Niedoba seemed similar to the one in the viral picture, with almost matching details, including the military cap and badges.
The BIC shared with us a Czech-language document from the website of the country’s army — titled “NORMATIVNÍ VÝNOS MINISTERSTVA OBRANY” or the “Normative Decree of the Ministry of Defence” in English — that features military uniforms; the one shown on page 101 almost matches the one in the viral image when flipped horizontally.
It is captioned as follows:
“Obr. 42. Vycházkový letní stejnokroj 2005 s letní čepicí 2005, bílou košilí, vycházkovými šňůrami 2004 a letními kalhotami 2005 pro vojáky z povolání pozemních sil.
[Fig. 42. 2005 Summer Walking Uniform with 2005 Summer Cap, White Shirt, 2004 Walking Cords and 2005 Summer Pants for Army Career Soldiers].”
Moreover, the outlet explained that a building of the Czech Army General Staff is situated near a Prague Metro station called Dejvická on Line A, making it more likely that it was a Czech military officer seen travelling on the train.
Soch Fact Check also enhanced the viral photo using artificial intelligence (AI) to ascertain the officer’s rank by the number of stars on his cap and found that there are likely three of them.
According to page 60 of the Normative Rules of the Ministry of Defence, three stars indicate the rank of “major, podplukovník, plukovník [major, lieutenant colonel, [or] colonel]” and brigadier generals, major generals, lieutenant generals, and army generals have a distinct embroidered pattern on the crown of their caps.
We also noted that at least one golden star or triangle is clearly visible on the military officer’s epaulette; however, since his shoulder is partially hidden by the red grab poles, he could have two stars or triangles as well.
According to the Czech army’s website, as well as pages 40 and 140 of the Normative Rules of the Ministry of Defence, this indicates that he is a commissioned officer because the stars or triangles are golden, not silver, and that his rank could possibly be Štábní Praporčík, which means Staff Warrant Officer, Poručík (OF-1), which means Second Lieutenant, Major (OF-3) or Podplukovník (OF-4), which means Lieutenant Colonel.
Most importantly, this confirms that the man is definitely not a general, as asserted in the claim’s caption, since they are recognisable by the golden embroidered borders on their epaulettes and the embroidery on their caps’ crowns.
In an attempt to ascertain the date of the photo, we started with the aforementioned reference of Robert Schwandl’s Urban Rail blog, which stated in a 20 February 2017 post that the city had started “to refurbish all older Russian trains which now run on lines A and B”. We translated the phrase “seating changed in prague metro, new appearance” to Czech — “sezení změněno v pražském metru, nový vzhled” — and were led to two news articles about a change in the Prague Metro.
According to a 14 July 2022 report by iDNES, the online portal of Czech newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes, the Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy (DPP) — or the Prague Transport Company — announced that single-person seats “in the subway will turn 90 degrees”.
On 18 July 2022, Czech media outlet Pražský deník reported, “According to DPP, single seats can only be turned in trains 81-71M. The seats cannot be turned in the M1 trains that run on line C.” That the change was made in the 81-71M also corroborates what the BIC told us: the image shows a Škoda 81-71M railroad car.
The DPP’s communications head, Daniel Šabík, as well as former deputy mayor for transport, Adam Scheinherr, confirmed the change, which they said would come into effect following a survey of 20,000 people, according to iDNES and Pražský deník.
While we were unable to identify the exact date the photo was taken, we can see the man in the image is sitting on one of the single seats, which were turned 90° towards the aisle over two years ago, indicating that it was likely taken after the DPP’s announcement from July 2022.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the viral claim is false as the picture neither shows a Swedish army general nor any other country’s top-ranking military officer.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim posted here on X, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook, and here on Threads.
One of the most viral posts, available on Facebook here, was shared over 23,000 times.
We also observed that the claim was posted by many accounts that appear to be PTI supporters; some of these posts can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The picture does not show a Swedish military officer, as confirmed by the Swedish Armed Forces. He is not a military officer of the rank of a general either but a Czech Army officer, possibly a staff warrant officer, second lieutenant, major or lieutenant colonel, who was travelling on the Prague Metro.
Background image in cover photo: Tobias Reich
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