Videos claiming to show Ukraine invasion sourced to old TikTok videos

24 February 2022
What was claimed

Videos on social media claim to show the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Our verdict

Some of these videos clearly do not depict the Russian invasion of Ukraine as they predate the invasion.

A video shared on Facebook, which has been viewed over 77,000 times, claims to show footage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Troops entered two rebel held areas in eastern Ukraine on 22 February, before an invasion was announced by Russian president Vladimir Putin on 24 February.

Some of the clips included in the video are clearly not of the invasion as they predate it. 

The first shows a TikTok of a large explosion next to a road. The TikTok was posted on 2 February 2022, several weeks before the invasion, by an account which frequently shares footage of different explosions. 

Later in the video another clip shows what appears to be a rocket in the sky and then an explosion in the distance. This is sourced to a TikTok posted on 18 January 2022, more than a month before the Russian invasion.

It is unclear where or when these explosions really took place, but they do not show the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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