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| - Fact Check: 'Hand of God' against Iran? No, this video of missile making self-goal is from Ukraine
An old video from Russia-occupied Luhansk in Ukraine was falsely shared as an Iranian missile targeted towards Israel destroying its own launch pad.
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India Today Fact Check
This video is from the Russia-occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine and dates back to June 2022. It shows a Russian missile that supposedly malfunctioned.
Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran, a video of a malfunctioning missile has gone viral on social media. The clip allegedly shows an Iranian missile taking a U-turn soon after launch and destroying the launcher instead of proceeding toward its intended target.
One post claimed: "Say if this is not the hand of God, A missile from the Iranian attack makes a U-turn and destroys the launcher, wow."
India Today Fact Check found that the video shows a Russian missile malfunctioning and is unrelated to the Israel-Iran conflict.
Our Probe
Reverse-searching keyframes from the viral clip, we came across the clip uploaded to some news YouTube channels, including The Sun on June 24, 2022.
Captioned "Russian missile fails and 'boomerangs’ back at Russian troops", the description of this video states the incident occurred in the Ukrainian city of Alchevsk in Luhansk, under the occupation of pro-Russian separatist forces.
On June 24, 2022, the Daily Mail reported the missile was likely an S300 operated by Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists from the breakaway Luhansk People's Republic. It added that no casualties were reported.
On September 30, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to consolidate its control over them.
We also found a report published by Snopes dated June 24, 2022, that raised some questions and concluded that the missile might not have hit the launcher. However, it is safe to conclude that it has nothing to do with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
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