Did a video show an Indian drone falling to the ground and causing an explosion, after being shot down by Pakistani forces in May 2025? No, that's not true: The video had been online since April 29, one week before India struck locations in Pakistan in response to a terrorist attack by Pakistani militants, and Pakistan, in response, shot down Indian fighter jets. An earlier version of the clip suggests it was recorded in Ukraine.
The claim appeared in a May 8, 2025, post on X (archived here), which consisted of a video of an object falling from the sky, hitting the ground, and causing an explosion, along with the following text caption:
🚨Exclusive footage of an Indian drone, shot down by Pakistani forces.
The post can be viewed below:
🚨Exclusive footage of an Indian drone, shot down by Pakistani forces. pic.twitter.com/VMZ8UYYHzy
-- Ihtisham Ul Haq (@iihtishamm) May 8, 2025
In reality, the clip was not recorded in the context of Indian-Pakistani clashes on May 7 or May 8, 2025. The earliest version we could find was posted to Telegram on April 29, 2025, along with the following caption (translated from Russian using Google Translate):
An epic dive by a Geranium on a target somewhere in Ukraine during a recent raid.
We are confirming the location.
The word "Geranium" is a Russian nickname ("Герань") for Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones used by Russian forces since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Thus, the video is likely to show a drone engaged in a deliberate attack, rather than a drone falling to the ground after being shot out of the sky.
The earlier footage was also longer, and before and after the moment of impact, featured at least two voices speaking Russian. Readers unable to access the video on Telegram can view a cropped re-posting of it on YouTube below:
