Does a video show U.S. paratroopers in Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine? No, that's not true: The clips in the video are at least six years out of date, excerpted from videos identified as showing U.S. military paratrooper training exercises 5,000 miles from Ukraine.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on March 7, 2022. The post included a video of what seemed to be U.S. paratroopers preparing for a landing in an unidentified area. The title and caption of the video reads:
American soldiers in ukraine Sky
American soldiers in ukraine
This is what the post looked like on Facebook on March 18, 2022:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Mar 18 14:58 2022 UTC)
The soldiers are shown performing a static line jump, which involves a static line attached to an aircraft on one end and to the rip cords of each parachute on the other. Clips of the exercises in the Facebook video match parts of this YouTube video published by Aiirsource Military on May 28, 2016. Its description says the paratroopers were from the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions of the U.S. Army and that the exercises were held in North Carolina. This video, which also includes clips that were in the Facebook video, was published by Military.com on July 30, 2016.
At the time of writing, President Joe Biden has stopped short of sending U.S. troops to Ukraine during the 2022 conflict. However, the U.S. has offered $1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine along with $300 million in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and neighboring countries.
Other Lead Stories fact checks related to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict can be found here.
