Clip shows behind-the-scenes footage from Russian music video, not person killed in concert hall attack
- Published on April 2, 2024 at 06:10
- 3 min read
- By Tommy WANG, AFP Hong Kong
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"The bodies of the victims of the Moscow concert hall are fraudulent! They're even smoking!" reads the simplified Chinese caption of a video shared nearly 100 times on social media platform X on March 24, 2024.
The video appears to show a mound of bodies wrapped in body bags and focuses on one person in the pile who is smoking a cigarette. It ends with a clip from the Chinese film "Let the Bullets Fly" in which one character exclaims: "What happened?"
Simplified Chinese text superimposed on the video reads, "One of the Moscow concert hall victims suspected of having a smoke".
The same video was shared with similar claims elsewhere on X here, as well as on Facebook.
The claim circulated after more than 140 people were killed when gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall in Moscow and then set fire to the building on March 22.
The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the attack, its deadliest on European soil.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged "radical Islamists" carried out the carnage, he has continued to allege arch-foe Ukraine was involved somehow, without providing any evidence.
The video circulating on social media, however, is unrelated to the concert hall massacre; it shows behind-the-scenes footage from a music video filmed years earlier.
Filming of music video
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video led to similar footage shared on TikTok by Vasya Ivanov on March 28, 2021 (archived link).
The video's Russian-language caption reads: "Shooting the Husky video - 'Never Ever'."
The video used in the falsely shared posts uses a mirrored version of the clip.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video on X (left) and Ivanov's TikTok video (right):
A subsequent keyword search found the music video, by Russian rapper Husky, was uploaded to Ivanov's Vimeo page on November 26, 2020 (archived link). Ivanov is credited at the end of the music video as its production designer.
The music video was also uploaded to Husky's official YouTube channel on September 26, 2020 (archived link).
While the music video does not show the clip of the man smoking, the scene that was being filmed is shown at its 2:23 mark.
Below is the screenshot comparison between the TikTok video uploaded by Vasya Ivanov (left) and a scene from the music video (right), with similarities highlighted by AFP:
The music video was filmed on this street in the Russian capital Moscow, approximately 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Crocus City Hall (archived link).
AFP previously debunked false claims the video showed staged deaths linked to Covid-19 here and the Ukraine war here.
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