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Tuesday, Mar. 8, 2022

Does a viral video show a destroyed city in Ukraine during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict?

Christiana Dillard, Lead Stories

no

A video used in a viral social media post to show the "present situation" in Ukraine is footage from at least as far back as 2020, which seems to show the aftermath of explosions in Lebanon.

Although Lead Stories could not determine the origin of the video, several other versions of the video were posted online in 2020. The captions of these videos all claim that the footage shows the aftermath of a pair of explosions at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon. Those explosions took place on Aug. 4, 2020, and killed more than 200 people.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine began in late February 2022, much later than the aforementioned appearances of the video online. While there have been several destructive attacks on Ukraine from Russia, this video is not representative of that conflict.

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