A video showing flashes of light illuminating the night sky, followed by loud noises was aired and shared by multiple media organisations on Thursday, 24 February, the day Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military exercise" into Ukrainian territory.
The video was shared, claiming to show explosions in the coastal region of Mariupol in Ukraine, amid the escalation of armed attacks in the country.
However, the video predates the violent conflict. We found that the video is at least from January and its uploader noted that it showed lightning striking near a power plant in Russia.
Catch all the live updates on the Russia-Ukraine tensions here.
CLAIM
The video was shared by various news organisations in India and internationally.
It was shared in a segment by Brut India, Mojo Story, and Times of India, while media organisation Vice News included a tweet with the same visuals in its article on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
(Note: Swipe to see other claims)
- 01/03
Brut India shared the clip in a segment.
(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)
- 02/03
Mojo Story shared the video on YouTube.
(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)
- 03/03
Vice News included a tweet in their article.
(Source: Vice/Screenshot)
Hindi News channel Aaj Tak also aired the video in a bulletin on the conflict, as 'explosion number 8'.
Journalists Ahmer Khan and Alejandro Alvares also linked the clip to the ongoing conflict.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
While looking for the information regarding the clip, we came across a TikTok video with the same visuals as the claim.
We accessed the TikTok video using a VPN, for more context.
Using Google Translate, which identified the text in Russian language, we found that the video had been captioned 'lightning strike at the power plant! 🔥⚡😳' and was shared on 29 January.
The video was uploaded in January.
(Source: TikTok/Alteredby The Quint)
We also saw that user 'kiryshkkanew' shared many videos of explosions in general on their TikTok profile.
Using the same Russian keywords, we looked for more videos or reports on the incident, and found the same video uploaded on YouTube on 19 February, five days before Putin announced the "military exercise".
The Quint reached out to user 'kiryshkkanew' and will update the story with more information regarding the video's origin as and when a response is received.
While explosions were heard in parts of Ukraine and air raid sirens were sounded across the country, this video does not show visuals of the current crisis in Ukraine.
Evidently, the clip predates Russia's announcement of military action in Ukraine. As per the caption in Russian, the video shows a lightning strike near a power plant, though we were unable to independently verify the incident.
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