No, this isn’t a real video of Russian tanks getting destroyed

It can sometimes be difficult to discern what information on social media about the war in Ukraine is credible, and what’s not. 

A recent Facebook post shared a video featuring combat scenes and alleged that it is footage of a "Russian tank column totally destroyed by attack helicopter."

But like other such clips that have come before it, this video isn’t real — it’s a video game simulation. 

This 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.)

Featured Fact-check

Viral image

stated on February 24, 2022 in a Facebook post

Video shows footage from Russia invading Ukraine.

We’ve previously fact-checked claims that took snippets from  Arma 3 and presented it as footage of Russia attacking Ukraine and China trying to attack Taiwan. 

Because this video looked similar to the clips used in those false claims, we searched YouTube for "Arma 3" and some of the key words in the Facebook post — "tank column" and "attack helicopter."

That led us to a March 13 post of the same video that appears in the Facebook post, only this one is clearly labeled as a "military simulation" and notes that it’s from the Arma 3 game. 

The claim that a video shows a Russian tank column totally destroyed by an attack helicopter is wrong. We rate it False.