Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
As Russia moves to recognize Ukrainian separatist regions of ‘Donbas’ as independent , the situation between the two countries has reached a boiling point, so to speak. Social media is inundated with unsubstantiated claims and speculations on what might happen next. In light of these events a video has been going viral on social media with the claim of showing footage of ‘Russia Vs Ukraine MiG-29 vs C- Ram Fight.’
This video has been shared on Facebook by a page called ‘Sriiishhh’ which has around 1000 followers. The viral video has garnered around 2,000 views with 31 likes.
Newschecker found similar claims on Facebook with similar captions.
The videos can be seen here and here.
In the video, a military equipment known as Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) is seen trying to shoot down a fighter jet which is seen firing at the C-RAM and the area around it. A person can also be heard narrating the incident, claiming that the fighter jet in the footage is Russian which is trying to escape a Ukrainian C-RAM.
Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – collectively known as the Donbass – broke away from Ukrainian government control in 2014 and proclaimed themselves independent “people’s republics”, until now unrecognized. Since then, Ukraine says about 15,000 people have been killed in fighting. Russia denies being a party to the conflict but has backed the separatists in numerous ways, including through covert military support, financial aid, supplies of COVID-19 vaccines and the issue of at least 800,000 Russian passports to residents. With the latest move of recognizing the region as independent, the decks are cleared for an open ended Russia military involvement, using the argument that it is intervening as an ally to protect them against Ukraine.
Factcheck/ Verification
To verify the authenticity of the video, Newschecker conducted a reverse image search of the key-frames of the video on Google and found a longer version of the video uploaded on the Warpig Gaming Facebook page. Warpig Gaming is a gaming streamer from Kolkata who streams live videos of him playing video games. His page has around 500,000 followers.
The game which is being streamed in the video is Arma 3. Upon performing a keyword search, Newschecker found several videos of the game which look exactly like the footage in the viral video.
Conclusion
According to the investigation conducted by the Newschecker team, it was found that the viral video with the claim of it being footage of the war going on between Russia and Ukraine is a video game clip shared out of context.
Result: False context/ False
Our Sources
If you would like us to fact check a claim, give feedback or lodge a complaint, WhatsApp us at 9999499044 or email us at checkthis@newschecker.in. You can also visit the Contact Us page and fill out the form.
Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
