Old footage of Russian air defence hitting targets over Moscow shared as visuals from Operation Sindoor

Within hours of the news break about India’s Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir on May 7, an 11-second video showing multiple red lights across the night sky went viral on social media. At first glance, the footage appears to show an air defense system firing at an aerial target.

A fortnight after a terrorist attack in Pahalgam had killed 26 people, Indian Armed Forces hit nine sites containing terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and PoK from where attacks against India had been planned and directed. The Union ministry of defence described the action as “focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”, with no Pakistani military facilities having been targeted.

A Pakistani X handle, @Move111Forward, shared the clip in question with a caption in extremely derogatory language, which claimed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been given a befitting reply by Pakistan. In other words, he claimed the clip showed Pakistan’s response to Indian strikes. (Archive)

مودی دی بنڈ پاڑ دتی گئی جے الحمدﷲ 🦾 pic.twitter.com/Jl45TXOTrl

— GHQ 111 Brigade™️ (@Move111Forward) May 6, 2025

The post has garnered over 4.5 Lakh views.

Another X user, Omer Butt (@omersarwar75), shared the video with similar claims.  (Archive)

مودی دی بنڈ پاڑ دتی گئی جے الحمدﷲ 🦾#IndiaPakistanWar#war #PakistanZindabad
pic.twitter.com/aDpOJCnqAy

— Omer Butt😊 (@omersarwar75) May 6, 2025

On YouTube, an account named Raza Joiya, shared the video clip claiming that it is the first strike from India.

Fact Check

After breaking the video into several key frames, we performed a reverse image search on a few of them, this led us to a post from April 10, 2025, on X by Maria Drutska. In the post, the user shared their concern over what they believed was an UFO spotted over Moscow, Russia. 

During the night, the Moscow region was attacked by a UFO 🛸 pic.twitter.com/0BKwbJTQEg

— Maria Drutska 🇺🇦 (@maria_drutska) April 10, 2025

We found another post on Facebook from April 10, 2025, by a Ukrainian media outlet Телекомпанія “Магнолія-ТВ” (Magnolia TV- broadcasting company). It shared a keyframe from the video with a caption that can be roughly translated as, “Meanwhile, in Russia – overnight, unidentified drone-helicopters attacked the Kaluga region and the Moscow suburbs. Specifically, Vnukovo Airport in Moscow and Kaluga Airport were temporarily closed under the “Carpet” protocol.”

Taking a cue from this, we performed a relevant keyword search that led us to several news reports from Russian news outlets. An article by Newsweek published on April 10, 2025, refers to the same video and states that Russian air defence fired at mysterious objects in the sky, sparking speculation. It adds that “conflicting accounts have emerged from Russia concerning the intended target of an overnight air defense operation in the Moscow region.”

While “state-run news agency RT reported Thursday that air defenses targeted “helicopter drones,” several Russian Telegram channels suggested that Russia’s air defenses may have mistakenly targeted one of their own military helicopters, the report said.

To sum up, the video clip in question is neither recent nor related to Operation Sindoor. The footage is from Russia. While some Russian media outlets claimed it showed Russian air defence targeting helicopter drones, Telegram channels suggested that Russia’s air defenses might have mistakenly targeted one of their own military helicopters.