Fact Check: Old video of Russian military drill mishap shared as from Ukrainian battlefront
India Today
As seen in the video, the tanks involved in the incident belong to Russia, but it didn't happen during the invasion of Ukraine. This footage is of an accident during a military drill in 2021.
Ukrainian forces claimed to have destroyed Russia's 146 tanks, 27 aircraft and 26 helicopters since the invasion began on February 24. Several posts on Russia's war machines are shared on social media as the fighting rages on.
Among these is the video of two collided Russian tanks. Soldiers can be seen helping their injured comrades from the tank that got flipped in the impact of the crash.
Tweets shared with the video can be seen here and here.
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found this claim to be misleading. While the tanks involved in the incident belong to Russia, it didn't happen during the invasion of Ukraine. This is the footage of an accident during a military drill in 2021.
The Russian national flag was imprinted on one of the tanks involved in the mishap. So, we reverse searched the keyframes of the video on the Russian search engine Yandex.
This led us to a report published on a Russia-based English news portal 'Reporter'. According to this report from October 4, 2021, the vehicles involved in the accident are a Tunguska anti-aircraft missile-gun system and BPM-2 type tank.
The report didn't have the exact date or place of the incident. The Russian army conducted a number of large-scale exercises both inside the country and abroad recently, it said. The report also mentioned Russia's 'Zapad 2021' military drill conducted on Russian and Belarusian territories.
