BBC Breakfast uses old footage of Russian parade rehearsal to show invasion of Ukraine

25 February 2022
What was claimed

A video of military planes is recent footage from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Our verdict

The footage is actually from May 2020, and shows preparations for a military parade near Moscow.

A clip of military planes was shown on BBC Breakfast on 25 February as part of a segment which claimed to show a journey from Kyiv to Poland following the recent invasion of Ukraine. As we’ve said already this particular clip of the military planes does not come from the Russian invasion.

A spokesperson for the BBC told Full Fact: “The footage was used once briefly in error and the team have been reminded about verifying images.” Use of the footage was not corrected during that particular segment, but we’ve asked the BBC whether or not an on-air correction was made at any other point. At the time of writing, it has not yet answered.

We wrote about this specific footage on 24 February, as an increasing number of misleading pictures and videos claiming to show the current situation in Ukraine emerged online. 

As other fact checkers, including Maldita and AFP Fact Check, have also reported, the footage is actually from May 2020 and shows a rehearsal for a military parade near Moscow.

The original footage can be seen on YouTube

We took a stand for good information.

After we published this fact check, we contacted the BBC to request a correction.

The BBC has published a note about this on their Corrections & Clarifications page to make it clear this was a mistake.

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