Video said to show ‘heavy war’ in Ukraine is not current

Real images showing violence and horror from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been hard to avoid as they stream across news stations, social media and more.

The truth of the destruction makes it even more perplexing when we see claims about the war that rely on unrelated video or images.

One recent Facebook video claimed to contain "leaked footage of heavy war between Russia vs Ukraine" but consists of clips taken from videos made more than five years ago.

The March 15 video looks like a TV news broadcast, with a chyron that says, "Live: War strike between Ukraine and Russia," and text on the screen that says "breaking news."

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The footage is a compilation made from old videos. Some of it is from a 2015 video created by a Turkish company about the Ukrainian army, and some is from a 2014 video filmed in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Beginning at the 27-second mark in the Facebook video, we see two vehicles, one firing missiles. Identical footage appears at the 1:02 mark in the 2015 video by Turkish company Haci Productions about the Ukrainian army. The company created the video as thanks for a different video made by Ukrainian volunteers about the Turkish Air Force.

That footage also is repeated in the Facebook video, appearing again at the 1:30 mark.

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At the 41-second mark in the Facebook video, men are firing rifles, and a tank with the marking "132" on the front drives down a street. The exact same footage is also found in a 2014 video called "Battle of Ilovaisk," starting at the 3:06 mark. The battle took place in August 2014 and resulted in "the biggest loss of life in Ukraine's war against Russian-backed separatists," according to a 2019 BBC News report.

Finally, at the 3:35 mark in the Facebook video, the image of tanks that is shown is from a 2014 Ukrainian news story.

We rate the claim that this video shows current leaked footage of war between Russia and Ukraine False.