A video is being shared on social media claiming it is the recent visuals of the Russian Air Force firing missiles on PMC Wagner ground troops. In the wake of the tensions between the Russian military and the PMC Wagner troops, a mercenary organization headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, this video was going viral on social media. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Recent video showing Russian Air Force firing missiles on the ground troops of PMC Wagner organization.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows a simulation clip created using the ARMA-3 video game software. The video has nothing to do with the incidents between the Russian military and PMC Wagner troops. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, similar visuals were found in a video published by a YouTube channel named ‘Battle POPs’ on 31 March 2023. This YouTube channel published the video with the title, “Russia’s Elite Air Force vs Ukrainian SAM Missiles Combat | MilSim Arma 3”, and a disclaimer was provided in the description of the video stating, “This video is a virtual game simulation.”
‘Battle POPs’ published many other simulation video gaming clips on their YouTube channel. A few of them can be seen here, here, and here.
Earlier, when similar ‘Arma 3’ gaming videos were shared as the visuals from the Russia-Ukraine war, Factly published fact-check articles debunking those claims. Those fact-check articles can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, a simulated video game clip is shared as the recent visuals of Russian Air Forces firing missiles on PMC Wagner troops.
