Old video of explosion at Ukrainian dam falsely linked to latest blast in June 2023
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 28, 2023 at 05:30
- Updated on July 28, 2023 at 05:39
- 3 min read
- By Till EICHENAUER, Eva WACKENREUTHER, AFP Germany, AFP Austria, AFP Hong Kong
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The 47-second, black-and-white video appears to show a bridge shattered by an explosion and was shared here on Twitter, which is being rebranded as "X", on June 6, 2023.
It has since been shared more than 180 times.
The caption, written in simplified Chinese characters, reads in part: "Video: Russian troops destroyed the Kakhovka Dam under its occupation in Ukraine. The dam, located in the Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine, was the last Soviet-built dam on the Dnipro River to collapse."
The Kakhovka Dam is located in southern Ukraine on the lower reaches of the Dnipro, the country's largest river (archived link).
Dozens died in flooding in the Kherson region after it was destroyed on June 6, while thousands more were forced to evacuate. Kyiv estimates the destruction of the dam caused $1.5 billion in damages to the environment (archived links here and here).
Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up the dam, which was under Moscow's control, while the Kremlin insists that it was Kyiv that shelled the Soviet-era structure.
The same video was also shared alongside a similar claim on Twitter in English here and here, as well as in Chinese,German, Spanish, Greek and Serbian.
However, the video was in fact taken in November 2022 and shows another blast at the dam.
Old footage
A combination of reverse image and keyword search on Google found the same video published on the website of British newspaper The Guardian on November 12, 2022 (archived link).
The news article title reads: "Footage shows massive explosion at dam in Kherson - video."
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the video published by The Guardian (right):
Russian media outlet Izvestia shared the video in a report on its official Telegram channel on November 12, 2022 (archived link).
Maxar satellite imagery also shows significant damage to the dam on November 11, 2022 (archived link).
The location shown in the video corresponds with Google Street imagery of the Kakhovka Dam taken in July 2015 (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the Google street view imagery (right), with similarities circled by AFP:
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