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| - Fact Check: Ukraine burying its soldiers in mass grave amid Russian invasion? This video is much older
AFWA's investigation revealed that the video has been on the internet since much before Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year.
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India Today Fact Check
This video has been on the internet since October 2020 at least. At the time, people sharing it claimed that the clip showed the Armenian military burying the corpses of Azerbaijani soldiers.
Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, harrowing visuals from the war have flooded social media. According to the United States, around 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured in the conflict.
Now, a disturbing video showing dead soldiers being dumped into a huge pit is being shared on social media. Those sharing it claimed the video shows Ukrainian soldiers, who died fighting against Russians, being buried in a mass grave.
AFWA Probe
A reverse image search of the viral video’s keyframes led us to the same video shared on multiple social media platforms in October 2020. One such was a Twitter post from October 26, 2020, that claimed in Russian the footage showed the Armenian military burying the corpses of Azerbaijani soldiers.
Around the same time, the video was also shared by a YouTube channel that also claimed it showed the cremation of Azerbaijani soldiers by the Armenian military. The video’s description noted, “As Azeri soldiers are being killed in masses by their Armenian adversaries Armenians are forced to bury the killed Azeri in mass graves to avoid the outbreak of infections due to the decomposition of the Azeri corpses. Here a video shows dumping of dead Azeri soldiers into a mass grave by an Armenian operator of an excavator.”
Several other social media accounts also shared the same video in 2020. These accounts also claimed the video was from the Armenia-Azerbaijan border crisis. Screenshots from the video were also carried by a few websites that reported on Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict.
The border conflict between Christian-majority Armenia and Muslim-majority Azerbaijan is decades old. In the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War that took place between September 27 and November 10, 2020, Azerbaijan reportedly defeated Armenia and regained control over its occupied territories. Per Al Jazeera, the six-week-long war left 6,500 people dead.
In September 2022 when the clashes between the two countries renewed, Armenia appealed for help from world leaders claiming Azerbaijani forces were trying to advance on its territory. In September 2022, Russia, Armenia’s closest ally, claimed it had convinced the former Soviet republics to agree to a rapid ceasefire.
AFWA was not able to independently verify the location of the video. However, it is clear that the video has been on the internet since at least October 2020, long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.
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