Does a video show a standoff between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers? Yes, but that alone is misleading. The video is footage of a standoff between the soldiers in 2014 during Russia's invasion of Crimea. It does not show a standoff during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia. A longer version of the video was originally published by BBC News Turkey and was also in the New York Times in 2014.
The footage appeared as a video (archived here) on Facebook on February 23, 2022. It opens:
Ukrainian and Russian soldiers face to face
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Mar 2 18:43:40 2022 UTC)
BBC News Turkey published the video on YouTube in 2014 with the headline "Kırım'da gergin anlar," which translates from Turkish as, "Tense moments in Crimea." According to Google translation, the caption read:
There were tense moments at the Belbek Air Base, which belongs to Russia, just outside the city of Sevastopol. As the unarmed Ukrainian soldiers marched towards the base, the Russian soldiers on guard opened warning fire at the Ukrainian soldiers.
The footage posted on Facebook is a 29-second video that was originally posted on TikTok. It matches the video on YouTube beginning at 54 seconds in:
The New York Times article published March 4, 2014, had a video of the standoff from a different angle that lasts 1 minute 18 seconds. The article explained the seven-hour standoff occurred when Ukrainian soldiers from the 45/15 air force unit approached the military airfield in an attempt to return to the guard posts they usually manned during the conflict with Russia. Despite the Russians firing a warning shot on the video, no one was injured.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict can be found here.
