A video showing an airplane conduct air strikes, while taking fire from an anti-aircraft weapon, is being shared on social media as real footage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The same clip was also shared by Malayalam news channel Mathrubhumi with the same claim.
BOOM found these claims to be false; the video is actually a user-generated clip from the gameplay of military tactical shooter video game ARMA 3.
The video was shared in the backdrop of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The conflict has led to a surge of old and unrelated videos along with clips from the video game ARMA 3 being falsely shared to show scenes from the invasion.
We found the video being shared on Twitter with the caption, "#WWIII BREAKING NEWS ‼️ situation In Russia right Now! Full control with Ukraine. Israel / China / Trump / World War III / Crimea / Ukraine / Putin / Biden / USSR / Kyiv / Iran / Poland #WWIII"
Click here to see an archive.
We also found the exact same clip being aired by Malayalam news channel Mathrubhumi as a footage from the conflict.
The news segment carrying the footage can be seen in this YouTube video at the 3:05 mark.
The same was also shared on the channel's Facebook page. The footage can be seen at the 4:39 mark.
Fact Check
Some of the responses to the Twitter video carrying the footage said that it originates from the game ARMA 3 and shows an 'A-10'.
We did a few reverse image searches with keyframes from the video and started for looking at clips that mentioned 'A-10 ARMA 3'.
We stumbled upon a YouTube shorts video from January 6, 2022, with the title, "A-10 Warthog Missile Gun Run - C-RAM - Military Simulation - ArmA 3 #Shorts".
The description of the video read, "The A-10 Thunderbolt II, also known by its pilots as the Warthog or Hog. The GAU-8 Avenger is an seven barrel Gatling gun in 30 mm caliber mounted on the A-10 Warthog/Thunderbolt II."
The realistic graphics of the video make has made it a popular source for making false and misleading claims about portraying real acts of conflict.
Furthermore, social media is also flooded with old and unrelated videos being shared with the false claims of being from the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. BOOM has done several fact-checks on claims linked to this conflict in the past two days.
Additional reporting by Sujith A.
