A video dating back to at least 2016 showing military paratroopers landing was misreported by Zee News and widely shared on social media falsely linking it to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, that he is launching a "special military operation" in Ukraine, a move that was followed up by reports of explosions around several cities, including Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, and the capital, Kyiv. Several videos on social media have emerged of the invasion unfolding in Ukraine, with Russia facing condemnation from the West including the United States and United Kingdom.
In a 54 seconds video, which had gone viral on social media before it was picked up by Zee News, one can spot several military paratroopers landing and taking positions.
The viral video was broadcasted on Zee News and uploaded on DNA's official YouTube channel with the caption, "Russia-Ukraine war: Russian paratroopers enter Ukraine; scary visuals caught on cam"
In the video, the anchor can be heard misreporting and stating that the video is from Ukraine showing Russian military operations in the country.
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DNA also put out an article on with the video with the headline, "Russia-Ukraine war: Russian paratroopers enters Ukraine; scary visuals caught on cam"
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BOOM has fact-checked DNA for misreporting other unrelated videos as from the Russia - Ukraine conflict.
Read here:Doctored Video Peddled As Russian Jets Entering Ukraine
The video has been doing the rounds on Twitter claiming that is from eastern Ukraine
Also Read:Video Game Footage Viral As Visuals Of Russian Air Strike On Ukraine
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video is not from the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine and dates back to at least October 2016. The video has been uploaded on several Russian video websites since then.
Taking a hint from the video of military paratroopers landing, we ran a selected keyword search in Russian with keywords like 'Российские десантники' (Russian paratroopers), and found the video had been viral on Russian video websites dating back to 2016.
The search results showed us a video uploaded on October 6, 2016, on the Russian website Ok.ru with the caption when translated from Russian states, "Khakhly, remember, this is what Russian paratroopers look like" (Хахлы, запомните, именно так выглядят Российские десантники). The meaning of 'Khakhly' here translates to 'Ukrainian, Little Russian'.
The same sequence of events can be seen in this 49 seconds video as in the viral video, where we can see the soldiers landing.
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The same soldiers can be identified in this video, as seen in the viral video.
BOOM could not independently verify the incident, however, we were able to establish that the video is old and not related to the recent Russia - Ukraine conflict.