A video from Russia of an annual artillery show has been shared with a false claim that it shows Iranians are having fun watching shots being fired between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The video was shared by a Twitter handle Renuka Jain and quickly garnered more than 300 retweets and over 500 likes.
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The same tweet was also shared on Facebook
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We further found that the caption shared on Twitter is an exact translation of a fake claim in Spanish language. The video was first viral on Facebook with a claim in Spanish.
FACT CHECK
We analysed the video and found a person wearing a sweatshirt with the words 'Russia' written on it and using that as a cue we ran a search reverse image search on the Russian search engine, Yandex.
On Yandex, we found several results dating back to 2019 and using further searches we found a tweet from December 6, 2019 by Russian media channel - NTV. The tweet from the verified handle of NTV (HTB in Cyrillic alphabet) carried the same video with the caption which translates to, "If you didn't know what Russian fireworks look like, then take a look. The footage was filmed at the range of multiple launch rocket systems. Judging by the calmness of the audience, they see this at least every day."
We then used a combination of keywords in Russian and ran a search on Google and YouTube with the search frame restricted to 2019 and found two news articles on Russian media outlets - Russia Beyond and Pravda published on November 17, 2019 with the headlines translating to, "Children and their parents attended the platoon strike from VBR Grad and Uragan". Russia Beyond uploaded the same video on their Facebook page on November 17, 2019.
Screeshot of the article uploaded by Russia Beyond can be seen below. Russia Beyond reported that the video is from the occasion of Day of the Missile Army and Artillery (RViA) where crews of a large number of artillery and missile systems showed their combat capabilities to the citizens. The report added that audiences could see the effect of the Point-U tactical missile system, the Msta-B, Gvozdika and Acacia self-propelled howitzers.
The article also described the video and said, "it showed multi-barrel rocket launchers Grad and Hurricane, whose salvo reddened the sky above the military range."
The news websites said that said multi-barrel rocket launchers City and Hurricane were used at the event organised at the Lushki military range and visited by people from the Leningrad, Pskov and Novogorsk regions.
The former Soviet states Armenia and Azerbaijan (with Turkish support) are at loggerheads over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, in the latest escalation over what is an unresolved military and regional conflict. Hostilities on both sides started on September 27, which has killed more than 400 and is attracting increasing international attention.
BOOM has previously debunked a video carried by TV9 Bharatvarsh who aired footage from a video game - ARMA 3 - as visuals from the ongoing military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Also Read:TV9 Bharatvarsh Runs ARMA-3 Clip As Armenia-Azerbaijan War Footage