Old and Unrelated Videos of Military Combat Passed Off as Russia-Ukraine War…

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine rages on, social media is getting flooded with posts about it. Fact Crescendo has debunked a number of posts containing misinformation pertaining to the war. We have come across yet another video that has gone viral on social media with captions claiming the scenes to be of Russia-Ukraine war. 

Here is a Facebook post having the video:

Facebook Link | Archived Link

Fact Crescendo found that a majority of the clippings in the compilation have been on the internet before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. 

Here are the details of the Fact Check:

FACT CHECK METHODOLOGY

At first, we split the video into keyframes and ran reverse image searches on them that has been used in the initial few seconds of the video. We could not locate the original source of the clipping upto about 00.27 seconds into the video. 

We then moved on the next clip in the video and saw that it has footage that was uploaded by the YouTube Channel, Millitary Footage Archive or MFA on October 18, 2021. The caption states “US & German Soldiers joint Combat Drills . GREEN GRIFFIN 21.” The description states that the video is from a multinational combat training event held at Lehnin, Germany on October 4, 2021 and shows U.S. Soldiers with the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade and the German Army Rapid Forces Division. This clipping has been used between 00.27 seconds to 3:15 minutes into the viral video. 

Here’s the YouTube video:

Following this, we tried to find the source of the next clip which shows what looks like  Amphibious Warfare. We used the same process as before but with a combination of relevant keywords and online search led us to another YouTube video posted by user Defense Flash News which premiered on October 5, 2021. The caption to the video is “UNITAS 2021: Amphibious Landing.” 

The description states 

“UNITAS 2021: Amphibious Landing

SALINAS, PERU

10.02.2021

U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – UNITAS and partner nations participate in a Peruvian led amphibious landing as part of UNITAS LXII in Salinas, Peru, Oct. 2, 2021.”

In the viral video, a clipping from this event has been used from 03.15 minutes onwards. 

Here’s the YouTube video:

We came across a Twitter post with an image that looked similar to a shot in the video, during a Yandex reverse image search of the next clip. Here’s the twitter post:

Twitter Link

The Twitter post had a link to a news report news report published on January 4, 2020 on the website of Russian news outlet Irystontv with the headline “Combat exercises were held at the Tarskoye training ground,” which has a video embedded into it and we noticed similarities in the clip that appears between 04:18 to 05:28 minutes into the viral video. 

Irystontv Link

Here’s a comparison between screengrabs from the viral video and the above stated news report:

We located the source of the next clipping. It was uploaded by the Russia Beyond Es page on September 18, 2020 with the caption: Russian military videos have become more artistic and cinematic. Here’s the link to the video: Facebook Link

Here’s a comparison between screengrabs of both the viral video and the video uploaded on the Russia Beyond Es page:

We also found that the next clip, between 05:29 to 07:26 minutes of the viral video were taken from a YouTube video uploaded on November 24, 2019 by user Global 305 with the caption “The use of self-propelled gun mounts “Malka” during the exercises in the Kuzbass.” 

Following this, we checked the clip between 08:30 and 08:50 minutes in the viral video and saw that this part of the video indeed has footage from the ongoing conflict. Sky News Link

CONCLUSION

Though we could not locate the sources of all the visuals in the video, the above evidences prove that not all clippings compiled in it are from the Russia-Ukraine war. Hence the claim that these are all visuals of the ongoing invasion is Partly False.