Video featured since 2020 in reports about Turkish attack in Syria, does not show Ukraine
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on March 3, 2022 at 08:46
- Updated on May 6, 2022 at 11:12
- 2 min read
- By Qadaruddin SHISHIR, AFP Bangladesh
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"Russia_Ukraine_War: Footage of air strikes on occupying Russian forces by Bayraktar TB2," reads a Facebook post from February 24, 2022.
Bayraktar TB2 is a Turkish-made combat drone that gained prominence in recent years after being deployed in various conflict zones including Syria and Azerbaijan.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, prompting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to declare a full military mobilisation.
The fighting has claimed hundreds of civilian lives and forced one million Ukrainians to flee, according to the United Nations' refugee agency.
The video was viewed more than 180,000 times on YouTube here.
The same footage was also viewed thousands of times on Facebook in other languages including English, Turkish and Spanish.
However, the footage has been shared in a false context.
While Ukrainian officials have said they used the Turkish-made drones in the ongoing fight against Russia, the video shared in the social media posts has circulated before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Keyword and reverse image searches found the footage in reports about a Turkish drone assault on a convoy of Syrian forces in the northwestern Idlib province in March 2020.
Syrian broadcaster Orient posted the footage on March 3, 2020 in an Arabic-language tweet.
It translates to English as: "Bayraktar burns an Assad militia. 24 dead with military vehicles destroyed."
المسيّرة "بيرقدار" تحرق ميليشا أسد.. 24 قتيلا وتدمر آليات عسكرية#درع_الربيع#أورينتpic.twitter.com/sQg7XMRuaU
— Orient أورينت (@OrientNews) March 3, 2020
Syria's ruler Bashar Al-Assad has overseen one of the century's bloodiest conflicts and was first elected as president by referendum in 2000.
The same footage was tweeted here on the same day alongside a caption stating it shows an incident in the Syrian city of Marat al-Numan, just south of Idlib.
It reads: “A #Syrian #Regime convoy consisting of tanks and armored vehicles were completely destroyed by #TB2 armed #UAVs, near #MaratAlNuman, South #Idlib”.
AFP reported on the Turkish drone strikes in Idlib province on March 1, 2020, which killed 19 Syrian government soldiers.
"The 19 died in strikes on a military convoy in the Jabal al-Zawiya area and a base near Maaret al-Numan city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said," the report said.
May 6, 2022 This article was amended to fix a description of a misleading Polish-language post.
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