Video of Moscow flyover falsely described as fighter jets in Ukraine

CLAIM: Video shows fighter jets flying in unison over the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as air sirens blare during Russia’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The original video of jets flying overhead was captured during a rehearsal for a 2020 air show in Moscow. Audio of air sirens has been added to the footage.

THE FACTS: As Russia unleashed airstrikes and ground attacks across Ukraine in a full-scale invasion of the country on Thursday, social media users shared old and out-of-context videos with false claims they depicted the attacks.

One video circulating widely online featured multiple clips of jets flying in various formations across a cloudy daytime sky, with trees, buildings and power lines visible in each frame.

A Twitter user who shared the video on Thursday with the hashtag “#worldwar3” wrote, “Air raid sirens all over Kiev now as fighter jets fly over the capital.”

The Indian news channel Zee News, meanwhile, shared a screengrab of the video on Twitter with a link to its coverage of the Russian attacks.

However, a reverse-image search reveals the video is nearly two years old, and was captured during a rehearsal before a Victory Day parade in Moscow.

A version of the video without the siren audio was posted to YouTube on May 4, 2020. A Russian-language caption identified it as the “air part” of a “parade rehearsal” in Moscow.

Images published the same day by The Associated Press show jets flying in similar formations through a cloudy sky, with captions describing the display as “the rehearsal for the Victory Day parade in Moscow.”

Air raid sirens wailed across Kyiv on Thursday as explosions hit the city and residents tried to flee.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.