After the Covid-19, the war. Images. The armed conflict launched last night by Vladimir Putin against Ukraine is experienced online for millions of citizens. But beware of hijacked photos and other videos taken out of context. They flourish on social networks to deceive Internet users, even the most knowledgeable.
From Russian fighter jets flying over Ukraine to the Russian flag proudly flying over a building in Kharkov, these shots are fakes. Many of them are regularly unearthed from Internet archives.
Here, the video is from 2020 as Russian troops were rehearsing a military parade. Likewise, a video with Russian paratroopers has been coming back regularly since 2016, and in its 2022 version, to illustrate the invasion of Ukraine overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
The infernal circle of fake news
This, like us learn it from our Spanish colleagues from Malditais actually taken from a video game Weapon 3, a war simulation game. It is only a short extract from a longer youtube video.
The violent fire of a chemical warehouse, on May 12, 2015, in Tianjin, China, is still and always used with each new event involving an explosion. This video was notably released on French networks in 2019, at the time of the fire at the Lubrizol factory. And she has resurrected this morning.
This is also the case for the young woman in a bus armed with her gun : she would announce that young Ukrainian women are ready for the fight. However, this photo was posted in March 2020 by a young model by the name of Ekaterina Novosibirsk.
And finally, the Russian flag hoisted on a building in Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, is not a doctored photo. On the other hand, the scene took place on March 1, 2014, at the time of the annexation of Crimea.
Open your eyes!