Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Conflict Between Russia, Ukraine

Fact Check

  • by: Lead Stories Staff
Fact Check:  Video Does NOT Show Conflict Between Russia, Ukraine Arma 3

Does a video posted to Facebook show footage of conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022? No, that's not true: The video shows gameplay from Arma 3, a military shooter video game. Many social media users have posted similar footage of Arma 3 during other conflicts and claimed that the footage is of a particular conflict.

The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on February 17, 2022. The video showed a jet dodging heavy fire from artillery. The chyron included in the video reads:

BREAKING NEWS Russia vs Ukraine war start

This is what the post looked like on Facebook on February 17, 2022:

Facebook screenshot

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Feb 17 22:32 2022 UTC)

Although there are concerns that Russia may invade Ukraine because the former country has increased its military presence near the Russia-Ukraine border, there is no evidence that there is an exchange of artillery fire between the two countries' defense forces at the time of writing. As the user who published this claim indicates in their post (see screenshot below in upper right hand corner), this video shows gameplay of Arma 3:

russia ukraine arma 3 FB post.png

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Feb 17 22:15:41 2022 UTC)

Similar clips of Arma 3 gameplay can be found on YouTube.

Lead Stories has debunked several videos purporting to show various conflicts that are actually gameplay videos of Arma 3. Those fact checks can be found here.

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