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No, this is not footage of Ukraine shooting down a Russian plane with troops on board
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• The crash footage is from 2021, when a prototype military plane crashed outside Moscow.
Images of destruction and war are not hard to find as Russia continues its attack in Ukraine, but not all the ones appearing on social media show what they describe.
The caption on a May 5 Facebook post says a video shows "Ukrainian forces shoot down Russian plane carrying hundreds (of) troops on Kyiv airport."
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.) It uses old images.
Ukraine did shoot down a Russian transport plane with hundreds of troops on board early in the war. But the footage in the Facebook video is not current and is not from Ukraine; it is from an August 2021 plane crash in Moscow.
Beginning at the 5-second mark in the Facebook video, a plane with flames coming out of it flies through the sky, passing what appears to be a communications tower, then nose-dives to the ground. The exact same footage was released by Russian state media on Aug. 17, 2021, with a caption that said, "A prototype of the new Russian transport aircraft Il-112V crashed near Moscow."
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Media reports at the time said the Russian plane crashed during a test flight, killing three people.
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The Facebook video also includes old footage from Ukraine. At the 52-second mark, soldiers are sitting side-by-side at computers, looking at radar. That footage can also be seen at the 1:52 mark in a 2019 video about the final stage of tests of anti-aircraft missile systems that was posted by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine..
And at the 59-second mark in the Facebook video, the footage of a tank is the same as the 3:21-mark in a 2014 video filmed in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
We rate the claim that this video shows recent footage of Ukrainian forces shooting down a Russian plane False.
Our Sources
Associated Press, "Propaganda, fake videos of Ukraine invasion bombard users," Feb. 25, 2022
Facebook post, May 5, 2022
Insider, "VIDEO: A new Russian military transport plane caught fire in flight and crashed outside of Moscow," Aug. 18, 2021
NBC News, "U.S. intel helped Ukraine protect air defenses, shoot down Russian plane carrying hundreds of troops," April 27, 2022
PolitiFact, "Video said to show ‘heavy war’ in Ukraine is not current," March 17, 2022
PolitiFact, "These video clips do not show Russia’s attack on Ukraine. They’re simulations from video games," Feb. 24, 2022
Twitter post, Aug. 17, 2021
YouTube, "Battle of Ilovaisk," Aug. 28, 2014
YouTube, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "The final stage of tests of anti-aircraft missile systems of air defense," Feb. 21, 2019
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No, this is not footage of Ukraine shooting down a Russian plane with troops on board
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