Fact-Check: Misleading Photos, Videos About Russia-Ukraine Crisis Being Shared Online

Fact-Check: Misleading Photos, Videos About Russia-Ukraine Crisis Being Shared Online
Misinformation about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine is rife, with media mainly from India and China circulating old photographs and videos claiming them to be from Ukraine.

Compiled by journalist Uzair Rizvi, dozens of videos and photos have been recirculated online and falsely described as footage of Russia's attack on Ukraine, which began on Thursday.

Indian news channels Times Now and NewsX shared an old video of a Russian air show, claiming it showed Russian warplanes over Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/RizviUzair/status/1496761949132136448

Indian news channel Zee News erroneously shared a video claiming it showed paratroopers landing in Ukraine.  The clip is actually from 2016 and has no relation to the ongoing crisis.

An Indian defence analyst, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, also falsely claimed the video showed a "major Russian paratrooper landing near Kharkov."

https://twitter.com/RizviUzair/status/1496891099863916562

A Twitter account apparently from China shared a video filmed in Beirut in August 2020, claiming it showed a city in Ukraine presently under attack.

A video of a blast at a chemical warehouse in China, which has been falsely attributed before, this time was described as an explosion of a powerplant in Luhansk. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) issued a fact-check confirming the video was from Tianjin, China in 2015.

https://twitter.com/RizviUzair/status/1496774339424927744

Even video games have been misleadingly shared.  A clip from the video game 'Arma 3' is circulating online under the hashtag #worldwar3, gaining 279,000 views in several hours.

https://twitter.com/RizviUzair/status/1496892105330888705

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an attack on Ukraine, which has now engulfed most of the country, within hours of Prime Minister Imran Khan's arrival in Moscow on an official visit.