Did a widely-shared clip show Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian airbases, in retaliation against a series of drone attacks on Russian warplanes in June 2025? No, that's not true: The footage was old, and dated to July 2024 at the latest. It appeared to show Russian missiles striking a children's hospital in Kyiv, not airbases.
The claim appeared in a June 1, 2025, post on X (archived here), which consisted of the 32-second clip in question, along with the following text caption:
In a retaliatory action, 7 Ukrainian airbases were destroyed.
This war will end with Ukraine's devastation.
The video can be watched below:
In a retaliatory action, 7 Ukrainian airbases were destroyed.
-- Russia Army (@RussiaStanArmed) June 2, 2025
This war will end with Ukraine's devastation. pic.twitter.com/mweEFjFnLu
The purported retaliation in question related to a swathe of June 1 drone attacks by Ukraine, which destroyed dozens of Russian military airplanes.
However, the footage shown in the X post has been online since July 2024, and therefore could not possibly have shown a Russian response to those drone attacks.
The earliest instance of the clip that we found was posted to X on July 8, 2024, and appears to show a Russian missile attack which struck a children's hospital in Kyiv on the same date.
