Picture from 2024 Ukraine drone attack on Russia gas plant falsely shared as recent
- Published on October 31, 2025 at 07:45
- 2 min read
- By Pasika KHERNAMNUOY, AFP Thailand
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Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on oil and gas facilities in Russia, with one strike hitting the major Orenburg gas processing plant in southern Russia on October 19, 2025. But an image of firefighters battling a massive blaze shared online was in fact taken more than a year ago in the Kursk region.
"Fire at Russia's gas processing plant following Ukraine's drone attack on October 19, 2025," reads a Thai-language Facebook post published on the day.
An image attached to it -- shared on a page with over 4,600 followers -- shows several firefighters battling a massive blaze.
The Orenburg gas processing plant, run by Russia's Gazprom, was forced to stop refining gas from neighbouring Kazakhstan's large oil and gas field, according to Kazakh authorities, after being hit by a Ukrainian drone on October 19 (archived link).
Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure in recent weeks left thousands without electricity, while Ukraine intensified its attack on Russia's western border regions, as well as its oil and gas facilities, in return (archived link).
The image has also been shared alongside similar claims in English, Chinese and Persian.
But it was taken in Russia's Kursk region in early 2024.
A combination of reverse image and keyword searches on Google led to a video showing the same scene at the seventh-second mark uploaded to The Telegraph's YouTube channel on February 15, 2024 (archived link).
The clip -- titled "Ukrainian drone strike hits Russian oil depot in Kursk" -- shows flames erupting from the building as thick black smoke billows into the sky.
AFP distributed the same visual as a frame from a video shared on Kursk governor Roman Starovoyt's official Telegram account on February 15 (archived link).
Its caption says it shows firefighters working to extinguish a fire after "a night-time Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze a Russian oil depot in the Kursk region".
More of AFP's fact-check reports on the Russia-Ukraine war can be found here.
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