Fake subtitles added to old clip of Putin talking about Ukraine war, not Israel-Gaza conflict
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 17, 2023 at 12:03
- 2 min read
- By AFP Kenya
- Translation and adaptation James OKONG'O
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“I am warning America, Russia will help Palestine and America can do nothing,” reads the text overlaid on a video posted to a Nigerian Instagram account on October 10, 2023.
In the clip, Putin seems to be responding to questions from Russian-speaking journalists.
The clip has been shared more than 3,000 times. It has also surfaced on Facebook.
Israel declared war on Hamas a day after waves of its fighters broke through the heavily fortified border on October 7, 2023, shooting, stabbing and burning to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians (AFP story archived here).
Reeling from the deadliest attack in its history, Israel has unleashed a relentless bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip that has flattened neighbourhoods and killed at least 2,750 people, mainly civilians.
On October 16, 2023, Moscow renewed its calls for an “immediate ceasefire”, urging leaders on both sides to start negotiations on ending hostilities.
Putin has described the war between Israel and Hamas as a “failure” of US policy in the Middle East, calling the establishment of a Palestinian state a “necessity” (archived here).
He also accused the US of “monopolising” the settlement of the conflict without taking into account “finding acceptable settlements for both parties.”
In recent years, Russia has maintained friendly relations with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, though ties with Jerusalem have been strained by Moscow's offensive in Ukraine.
Old mistranslated footage
The video circulating on social media claiming to show Putin saying Russia would support the Palestinian side is old and has inaccurate English subtitles.
AFP Fact Check first debunked the claim in Arabic and found that the footage was mistranslated and predates the current Israel-Gaza conflict.
Using a reverse image search on a screenshot from the video, we found that the clip has been online since at least December 2020.
The original version, published on USA Today’s YouTube channel, shows Putin speaking at a televised meeting on December 7, 2022 (archived here). He addressed the growing threat of nuclear war around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022.
The subtitles on the YouTube footage read: “Regarding the fact that under no circumstances will Russia strike first, if it does not strike first under any circumstances, then it will not strike second either, because the possibilities of a nuclear strike on our territory are very limited.”
The renewed conflict between Israel and Palestine has generated a wave of misinformation online. You can follow our coverage here.
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