Fact-Check: Viral TikTok Video Of Russian Warship Exploding
Viral videos on social media has yet again continue to amass views alleging to reveal the explosion that sank the Moskva, the premier Russian Black Sea warship.
Statesman.com reports that one such viral video was posted to TikTok on April 14, the same day the missile cruiser sank.
Nexus News recalls that Russia and Ukraine gave varying explanations regarding the sunk ship: Ukraine contended that it took out the ship with missiles, a position substantiated by U.S. officials, while Russia accused a fire on board and only lately acknowledged casualties.
The viral TikTok video has since racked more than 16.5 million views. Other versions of the same video.
The video showing the Moskva, also materialized on other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
“Russian warship ‘Moscow’ went to hell,” one tweet said. “Very fast!”
Nonetheless, after Nexus News ran a fact-check, viral videos turned out to be falsely captioned.
It was gathered by Nexus News that the footage seen in the viral videos predates the Russian war on Ukraine by almost a decade. Researchers and fact-checkers at Bellingcat, Reuters, Snopes and other organizations promptly identified the original source of the footage.
In a reverse image search, it was discovered that the video was taken off the coast of Norway in 2013. The Norwegian Navy blew up one of its own decommissioned ships with a missile as part of a military exercise meant to test out new weapon. The same video was circulated online in 2013 by CNN, Military.com, and South West News Service, a British news agency.
“That is some serious Scandinavian firepower right there,” CNN’s John Berman said in a June 2013 TV segment that played the footage. “That’s the Norwegian Navy blowing up one of its own ships to test out a new long-range stealth miss
