Amidst Russia’s ongoing military operations in Ukraine, a video of an explosion has been linked to the crisis. Viral claims suggest that the video shows Russia bombing Ukraine.
We are very concerned for Ukraine.
The sad thing is that whenever innocent people of a peaceful country are killed in war what is their fault, then it seems that human life has no value#worldwar3#RussiaUkraineConflict pic.twitter.com/HOxq6rfqJY
— Ukraine News update (@Senju_hyuga) February 24, 2022
The video was picked up by Hindi news channel News24.
The same video was part of another News24 broadcast where it was again played as heavy “bombing” in Ukraine by Russia.
Old video from China
We broke down the viral video into keyframes and ran one of the stills through Google reverse image search. This led us to various news reports about a port explosion in China in 2015. We checked a news broadcast by CBS and noticed some similarities to the viral video.
Taking this broadcast as a clue, we performed a keyword search on YouTube and came across the full video on BBC News’s YouTube channel. The video was recorded by an American tourist named Dan Van Duren.
Hence, a video of an explosion in China in 2015 was part of News24’s broadcast of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. News24 has aired multiple instances of misinformation on the Ukraine crisis that can be read here and here.
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.
