Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Airstrikes In Ukraine -- 2020 Moscow Airshow Rehearsal Footage

Fact Check

  • by: Sarah Thompson
Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Airstrikes In Ukraine -- 2020 Moscow Airshow Rehearsal Footage 2020 Airshow

Does this video footage show Russian air attacks on Ukraine? No, that's not true: This video footage dates from May 4, 2020. It shows military planes flying over Moscow, rehearsing for a Victory Day airshow. The shortened clip was reposted on February 24, 2022 misrepresenting this footage as an airstrike in Ukraine. Sound effects of air raid sirens have been added over the original audio. Russia did launch attacks on Ukraine on February 24, 2022 -- but this is not footage of those attacks.

This footage was filmed over Moscow on May 4, 2020 and additional footage of the same planes from other angles were posted on Youtube at the time. An edited copy of this footage was posted on Facebook on February 24, 2022. It opened:

#Propogenda war starts.
#Ukraine claims #shot down of Russian fighter planes.
#Russia bombs Ukrainian air port and other #military installations.

This is how the post looked at the time of writing:

airshow02.jpg

(Image source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Feb 24 15:52:28 2022 UTC)

The unedited video was posted on YouTube on May 4, 2020. The title translated from Russian says: "Parade rehearsal 05/04/2020. Air part. Flight of aircraft over Tushino" Tushino airfield is in the northwest of Moscow.

airshow03.jpg

(Image source: YouTube screenshot taken on Thu Feb 24 16:06:07 2022 UTC)

Sound effects of air raid sirens were added to this old video footage which originally only featured the roar of the planes flying overhead. Air raid sirens were heard on February 24, 2022 in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, as can be heard in this CNN video.

This altered and mislabeled video was amplified on Twitter (archived here) by Sebastian Gorka with the caption:

Unbelievable footage of Russian bombers over Ukraine.

(Thanks MTHR)

airshowtweet.JPG

(Image source: Twitter screenshot taken on Thu Feb 24 16:30:11 2022 UTC)

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Sarah Thompson

Sarah Thompson lives with her family and pets on a small farm in Indiana. She founded a Facebook page and a blog called “Exploiting the Niche” in 2017 to help others learn about manipulative tactics and avoid scams on social media. Since then she has collaborated with journalists in the USA, Canada and Australia and since December 2019 she works as a Social Media Authenticity Analyst at Lead Stories.


 

Read more about or contact Sarah Thompson

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion