A video, shared on social networks and in articles on several websites, claims to show Russian paratroopers landing in Ukraine. The video, however, is from 2018.
An article was published on the website Vecernje Novosti on February 24, 2022. It was entitled:
RUSSIAN MILITARY PARATROOPERS LAND IN UKRAINE? Watch the video circulating on the networks (VIDEO)
The article states that there is a video showing the landing of Russian paratroopers on the territory of Ukraine, near the city of Kharkiv.
As can be seen in the video circulating on the Internet, Russian military paratroopers landed in Ukraine, near Kharkiv.
The article contains a link to Nguyen Ken’s Twitter profile. However, the post can no longer be accessed.
It is only from the photo available in the article that it is possible to conclude what kind of video it is and what it shows.
The article was then published on Informer, Glas Javnosti and Pravda.
LANDING OF RUSSIAN PARATROOPERS NEAR KHARKIV! A published video will make you shiver, everyone is wondering only one thing! (VIDEO) (Informer)
RUSSIAN MILITARY PARATROOPERS LAND IN UKRAINE? Watch the video circulating on the networks (VIDEO) (Pravda)
RUSSIAN PARATROOPERS LAND IN UKRAINE? The video that set the networks on fire, DOWNLOADED FROM TWITTER, and LEAKED AGAIN! (VIDEO) (Glas Javnosti)
All three articles have identical claims about Russian paratroopers landing in Ukraine. Unlike Vecernje Novosti, a video is available in the articles. The website Glas Javnosti, for example, included in its article a video from a Twitter profile of Jovin Mickey.
An identical video was also shared on social networks. On February 24, 2022, the Facebook page of Crvene beretke published the video along with the claims that “Russian paratroopers landed in the area around Kharkiv”. By the time this analysis was written, the video had 2,100 reactions, 66 comments and was shared 225 times. An identical video was published on the Facebook profile of Nebojsa Manojlo Manojlovic on February 24, 2022, featuring a description “It’s snowing in Ukraine”.
We found the same video on the profiles of Jovin Mickey and Kentaur Wolf2 on Twitter along with the following descriptions: “decommunization” and “now they have nothing”. So, there is no explicit statement in the descriptions of these videos indicating what they actually show. However, they imply that they show current events in Ukraine.
The same claim was published by the website Pobjeda in Montenegro, and the claims became popular in the entire region. Besides Raskrinkavanje.na from BiH, Raskrinkavanje.me from Montenegro also published the debunk.
What are the facts?
The video, which is said to show the landing of Russian paratroopers in Ukraine, was analyzed by Lead Stories. In the analysis published on February 24, 2022, Lead Stories states that claims shared in the English-speaking world suggest this was a video showing the landing of Russian paratroopers in Ukraine. However, this is an incorrect statement.
The video was made in 2018. According to Lead Stories, it shows a military exercise held in Vostok in 2018. The video, published on the YouTube channel Hindustan defence News in 2018, shows the same frames used in the analyzed posts, starting from 0:47.
An identical topic was analyzed by our partner websites, Raskrinkavanje from Montenegro and Istinomer from Serbia, and the same conclusion was reached (1, 2).
According to available reports, such as the Associated France Press (AFP) report, there were cases of Russian troops landing with parachutes in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Therefore, the video that is said to show the landing of Russian paratroopers in Ukraine is not authentic. It was created in 2018 during military exercises in Vostok, and is not related to the current armed conflict in Ukraine.
Given the stated facts, we rate the article of the website Vecernje Novosti, claiming that the video shows the Russian army landing in Ukraine, as fake news. All other sharing of this claim receives the rating for the distribution of fake news.
We also rate the posts from the analyzed Twitter profiles as manipulation of facts, as they do not contain explicit claims about what the video shows, and lead to the conclusion indicating this is the current video.
(Authors: Mladen Lakić, Raskrinkavanje.ba and Goran Delić, Raskrinkavanje.me)
