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| - Fact Check: Not Ukrainian drones giving hell to Russian subs, this video is yet another 'Arma 3' gameplay
According to the AFWA probe, the video is a recording from an "Arma 3" video game playthrough and not actual war footage. There are no recent reports of Ukrainian airstrikes on the Russian navy.
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India Today Fact Check
This is a recording from an “Arma 3” video game playthrough and not actual war footage. There are no recent reports of Ukrainian airstrikes on the Russian navy.
Amid news of Ukraine and Russia agreeing to sign a deal to reopen Ukrainian Black Sea ports, whose blockade by the Russian navy had worsened global supply chain disruptions, a supposed scene of the war has been making rounds online.
Per those sharing the video, it shows a Ukrainian drone strike on Russian naval troops. It shows marathon waves of air-to-sea strikes critically hitting numerous harboured ships and submarines.
"This morning, Russian ships and submarines were sunk by the Bayraktar TB2 Drone," one such post from July 20 said. The Bayraktar TB2 are Turkish-made drones that are being used by Ukraine to fend off Russian troops.
AFWA’s investigation found that the claim was misleading. The video is not from the Russia-Ukraine conflict at all — it’s from the popular video game “Arma 3”.
AFWA Probe
The visuals looked similar to the gameplay of “Arma 3”, a video game whose clips have often been shared as real visuals of modern conflicts. We found a map/radar option partially visible on the right part of the screen. When cross-checked with “Arma-3” airborne mission gameplay videos available on YouTube, they all looked very similar. The icon used to indicate the aircraft's position and the word “SENS” near it also looked the same.
We then copied and ran the caption of the post on the YouTube search bar and found the viral video uploaded with the same claims to a channel called 'Xadarov' on July 20.
The description box of the video, however, contained a disclaimer message that confirmed that the video was not real. "THIS IS ONLY SIMULATION, NOT REAL LIFE! I make military simulations using the Arma 3 Simulator. Bohemia allows to make YouTube videos from their game and monetize it," it read.
The Facebook page that shared the claim did not carry a similar disclaimer. Neither did the page mention anything about the game. The profile claimed to be political.
Several times in the past AFWA has debunked misleading claims involving “Arma 3” visuals. Some of these can be read here, here, and here.
Were any Russian submarines hit?
We ran an advanced Google search for reports since July 20 about Ukrainian attacks on the Russian navy. But there was no major news on this apart from a Bloomberg story on the Royal British navy having tracked Russian submarines in the North Sea.
Thus, we conclude that the video in question is not a face-off between Ukrainian drones and Russian naval units as claimed. It is pre-recorded footage from the video game “Arma 3”.
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