FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show A Ukrainian Drone Hovering Above Moscow’s Red Square?
A video shared on Twitter claims to show a Ukrainian drone hovering above Moscow’s Red Square.
Ukrainian drone successfully completed a recon mission above the Kremlin and the Red Square. You can see Lenin’s Mausoleum in the initial shot. Putin is not the only one preparing for May 9th. pic.twitter.com/safaIN8bNQ
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) April 25, 2023
Verdict: False
The video is from 2015. It was not taken by the Ukrainian military.
Fact Check:
A Russian missile and drone strike in Ukraine killed at least 16 people early Friday, according to The Associated Press. The missiles struck an apartment building in the center of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, the outlet reported.
The video claims to show a Ukrainian drone hovering above Moscow’s Red Square. The tweet reads, “Ukrainian drone successfully completed a recon mission above the Kremlin and the Red Square. You can see Lenin’s Mausoleum in the initial shot. Putin is not the only one preparing for May 9th.”
However, through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact found that the video is actually from 2015. The video was posted to YouTube in October 2015 by the AirPano VR YouTube channel. The video’s title reads, “360° Moscow Kremlin. 4К aerial video.”
“AirPano team with the support of the Russian Geographic Society presents the 360 video of historic-architectural ensemble of Moscow Kremlin. Domes of Cathedral Square, the Tsar Cannon, Ivan the Great Belltower and the Saviour Tower — it’s not a full list of Kremlin’s sights, which you will see in our video,” reads the video’s description.
The video has been edited to include an overlay that makes it seem like it is from a military drone. Other signs, such as the compass not moving while the drone’s camera moves from left to right, also point to the video being edited.
GeoConfirmed, a community of volunteers that geolocates videos from the Russian-Ukrainian war, stated on Twitter that the video is from before May 2015. (RELATED: Does This Video Show NATO Helicopters Being Show Down In Ukraine?)
GeoConfirmed UKR.
“Video near St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square Moscow”
⚠️This video is from before May 2015.⚠️
55.752853, 37.622277
Thx to @rollowastaken https://t.co/dmqI60Bh1S
— GeoConfirmed (@GeoConfirmed) April 25, 2023
Misinformation around the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is not new. Check Your Fact recently debunked claims that the leaked Pentagon documents show that Ukraine suffered 71,000+ deaths.
