FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show A Russian Ammunition Depot Exploding?

Elias Atienza | Senior Reporter

A video shared on Facebook claims to show a Russian ammunition depot exploding in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Verdict: False

The video predates the current conflict in Ukraine. The footage appears to be from a suicide bomb attack in 2017.

Fact Check:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Congress Wednesday night, in his “first known trip” abroad since Russia’s invasion of the country nearly 10 months ago, according to NBC News. This comes after Congress proposed a new aid package of more than $44 billion in emergency aid on Tuesday, The New York Times reported.

The Facebook video claims to show a Russian ammunition depot being destroyed. The video’s caption reads, “The footage shows the detonation of a Russian ammunition depot somewhere in the Donetsk region.” The video was also shared on Twitter, with one iteration receiving over 230,000 views.

This video, though, is not from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact found that the video has been shared since 2019. The video was shared on Twitter by independent researcher Hugo Kaaman in 2019. He reshared the video in 2022.

“The more spectacular cases — such as this video of an HTS up-armored SVBIED detonating outside Qomhane North of Hama city in 2017 — easily lend themselves to conspiratorial claims about” neutron bombs” and the like. It’s just a weather effect,” Kaaman tweeted in 2022. (RELATED: Does This Video Show Volodymyr Zelenskyy Dancing With A Rocket Launcher?)

Reuters first debunked the claim that the video was from Ukraine in March 2022. The outlet reported that videos claimed it showed an ODAB 500P thermobaric bomb. Check Your Fact geolocated the video to Qomhame, which is north of Hamas City, as Kaaman stated in his tweet.

Misinformation around the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is not new. Check Your Fact recently debunked a video claiming to show Russian jets being destroyed in Ukraine.

Elias Atienza

Senior Reporter
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