Amid the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war, a video is being widely shared on social media claiming that it shows a fresh clash between the Russian and Ukrainian forces.
The video is being shared on Facebook with the caption, “Russian army and Ukraine army fighting fresh.”
Here’s the link to the above post. You can also see them here, here, and here.
The video is being widely shared on Facebook with Hindi captions as well.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim and found it to be MISLEADING.
Using the InVid Tool, we extracted keyframes from the video and performed a Reverse Image Search. This search directed us to a YouTube channel that carried the same viral video on May 20, 2021. This clearly means that the video is old and not related to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.
Searching further, we found the longer version of the viral video uploaded on a YouTube channel dated March 25, 2021. The video description reads, “During the Battle for Samarra, also know as Operation Baton Rouge. US special forces and the 36th Iraqi Commando Battalion were in this assault. 25 Iraqi insurgents were captured and 4 were killed in this raid.”
The same video was also uploaded on a verified YouTube channel on August 29, 2020. The video description reads, “Historical US Special Forces Raid On Golden Mosque.”
Taking a cue from this, we did a keyword search and an article publsihed by the Los Angeles Times on October 6, 2004, that reported the same incident stating that “US troops cleared insurgent strongholds and pounded the city of Samarra, Iraq with airstrikes, four units of Iraqi forces seized sensitive buildings, such as the Golden Mosque.”
We also found an article by The Guardian which reported the timeline of the same incident. According to the article, the US troops attacked the Golden Mosque in October 2004. Check a related article here.
Below is the comparison between the mosque visible in the viral video and images of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq.
Thus, it is evident from the above information that an old video from Iraq is being falsely linked to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict.
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