On February 24th, a video allegedly depicting a large number of military planes in the Ukrainian sky has become viral on Georgian social media. According to the descriptions, the footage was taken in Ukraine, and the aircrafts belonged to the Russian military. The videos were shared by “Alt-Info” host Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, blogger Beka Vardosanidze and the Facebook page Cardhu. Cardhu claimed that “Russian fighter jets and bombers are bombing Ukrainian cities.” Mzhavanadze added the following description to the video: “This is hell,” while Beka Vardosanidze noted that the video depicted combat planes.
The viral video is being disseminated with a false description, in fact, the video was shot not in 2022 in Ukraine but in 2020 during the rehearsal of the parade commemorating the Russian victory in World War II.
The editor of the American media organization “First Draft” wrote on their Twitter account on February 24th that the footage was actually from the 2020 Russian parade and was incorrectly linked to the events of February 24th, 2022, of Ukraine.
On May 9th, 2020, Russia celebrated its victory in World War II in a grand fashion. Preparations for the parade were underway in the previous days. One of the rehearsals of the air show to be held in Moscow took place on May 4th.
The released video shows the rehearsal footage of May 4th, 2020.
According to the video description, the footage was taken above the town of Tushino, near Moscow. The video can be found on the internet since May 4th, 2020. Not to mention, the video with the fake description is shorter than the original and only shows fighter jets.
Apart from Georgia, the video with a false description was disseminated globally as well. For instance, the information was also verified by the Spanish fact-checkers.
For more information about the local disinformation around the events of February 24th, see our articles:
- Pro-Kremlin “Alt-Info” Shows Footage of Chemical Warehouse Explosion in China while Talking about the Russia-Ukraine War
- The Photo from 2014 Used to Illustrate the Siege of Kharkiv during the 2022 War
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