An unrelated video of flashes of light in the night sky followed by loud noises is viral on social media falsely linking it to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. The video was published by several Indian media organisations with the same false claim.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, that he is launching a "special military operation" in Ukraine. Following the invasion, there have been several reports of explosions, Russian tanks crossing the border, and pitched battles around several cities in Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Mariupol in the east, and the capital, Kyiv. Several videos on social media have emerged of the events unfolding in Ukraine, with Russia facing condemnation from several countries.
The video was tweeted by Twitter user Alejandro Alvarez with the caption, "Mariupol under almost constant bombardment in this video."
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The same video by published up by Times Of India, Mojo Story, and Vice News falsely attributing it to the 'Russian military operations' in Ukraine. TOI and Mojo Story have taken down the story, where as Vice News has removed the tweet from their article.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video is unrelated and dates back at least to January 2022, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.We found several replies to a tweet with the viral video saying that the video is not related or recent and was uploaded on Tik Tok on January 29, 2022.
The oldest trace of the video online we found was uploaded by the Tik Tok user 'kiryshkkanew' who posted it with a Russian caption which translates to, "lightning strike at the power plant!"
On accessing Tik Tok through a VPN, we were able to view the post and see the same sequence of events as in the viral video. The date stamp "1-29" stands for January 29, 2022.
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We also noticed that the Tik Tok user 'kiryshkkanew' has been posting several videos of explosions on his account. The same user on his Vk.com account had also uploaded a video on January 11, 2021, of lightning in the sky. Vk.com is a social networking site used in Russia. The user on his bio on Vk.com states his name as 'Kirill Kosachyov' from Lensk, Russia.
We also found the same viral video uploaded on YouTube in February 2022 with the same Russian caption that Kosachyov had used on Tik Tok.
However, BOOM could not independently verify the incident, but we were able to establish that the video dates back at least to January 2022 and is not related to the recent Russia - Ukraine conflict.
BOOM has debunked several pieces of misinformation around the conflict with unrelated videos and images being shared with false claims. Follow our thread below: