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| - Fact Check: 2013 video of Syrian rebels shooting down fighter jet viral as Ukrainian F-16 under attack
India Today Fact Check found that the viral video from Syria is over 11 years old. It has nothing to do with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
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India Today Fact Check
The viral video from Syria is more than 11 years old. It has nothing to do with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
A video allegedly showing Russian forces shooting down a Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet has been widely shared online. Sharing this video, an X user wrote, “Russia shoots down F-16. Using new state-of-the-art S-500 air defence in Ukraine. This will be the fate of all Western planes sent to Ukraine.” Archives of such posts can be seen here and here.
India Today Fact Check found that the viral video from Syria is more than 11 years old. It has nothing to do with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
It’s noteworthy that in an interview in February, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance wants F-16 jets to be available to Ukraine as soon as possible without specifying the timeframe. Also, on March 20, a Greek F-16 fighter aircraft crashed in the Aegean Sea during a training mission near Psathoura island, 175 kilometres northeast of Athens, Greece. The pilot was reportedly rescued.
OUR PROBE
We performed a reverse search on screengrabs of the viral video. This led us to the same video uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Euronews (Turkish) on February 4, 2013. As per the video report, it showed clashes between pro-regime forces and rebels across Syria. Rebels reportedly shot down a Syrian MiG-23 warplane during the clashes near the west-central Syrian city of Hama.
In February 2013, many international media outlets and channels reported this incident with the same information.
We searched about this incident using Arabic keywords and found a similar video uploaded to the YouTube channel of Ugarit News - Syria in February 2013. Ugarit News is an online Syrian rebel news outlet.
As per the video’s title, rebels shot down a MiG-23 plane in the city of Karnaz, located northwest of Hama. This means the video predates the ongoing war in Ukraine.
In 2023, the United States approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to power its defence against Russian aggression. But Ukraine has yet to receive any ( https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/world/europe/ukraine-f16-pilots.html ) F-16 jets officially from the NATO allies. Also, the artillery gun used in the viral video does not match the Russian anti-ballistic missile system S-500.
Thus, it's more than clear that an 11-year-old video from Syria was falsely linked to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
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