Fact Check: This Is NOT Recent Photo From Kyiv Of Man Shooting At Iranian Drones From His Balcony Window

Fact Check

  • by: Courtney Kealy
Fact Check: This Is NOT Recent Photo From Kyiv Of Man Shooting At Iranian Drones From His Balcony Window Satirical

Is this a recent photo from Kyiv, Ukraine, of a man shooting at Iranian drones from his balcony window? No, that's not true: This photo is from a Twitter account that acknowledges this tweet is an old picture and a meme.

The claim appeared in a tweet on October 17, 2022 (archived here), that opened:

Casual morning in Kyiv: Coffee, cigarette, balcony, gun, trying to shoot down Iranian drones

This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:

Twitter screenshot

(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon Oct 17 16:34:31 2022 UTC)

The Twitter account describes itself as:

The Official Saint Javelin account. We sell things so we can help Ukraine. Shop on our website to support the effort

Below you can see in the full tweet the sub-tweet saying, "Yes, this is an old picture. Yes, this is a meme."

Screen Shot 2022-10-17 at 12.46.24 PM.png

Russia started using Iranian-made drones about mid-August, most likely because Russia may be running low on supplies of precision weapons, according to The New York Times. Iran's Shahed-136 drone can dive-bomb a target and explode on impact, but they are noisy and easy to target with conventional weapons.

The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense tweeted that they are easily targeted. One of the tweets said:

These UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] are slow and fly at low altitudes making lone aircraft easy to target using conventional air defences. There is a realistic possibility that Russia has achieved some success by attacking with several UAVs at the same time.

Throughout this conflict, Ukrainians have used humor as part of the way they show strength and unity during Russian attacks. A morning coffee and cigarette while shooting down "kamikaze" drones from an apartment balcony window fits in the same vein.

Additional Lead Stories fact checks about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine can be found here.

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.:


  Courtney Kealy

Courtney Kealy is a writer and fact-checker at Lead Stories. A graduate of Columbia University’s School of Journalism, she specializes in national and foreign affairs with more than two decades experience in the Middle East. Her work has appeared on FOX News, AlJazeera America, ABC News, the New York Times, Marie Claire, Time and Newsweek.

Read more about or contact Courtney Kealy

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