A short clip, which appears to show corpses piled in the back of a truck, of which one can be seen smoking a cigarette, is being shared on social media to push the narrative that Ukraine is faking its war casualties.
The claim, along with the video, insinuates that one must not believe all the media reports that one comes across regarding the Russia-Ukraine war.
However, we found that the video dates back to 2020 and has no connection to the ongoing war. It shows behind-the-scenes footage of a music video for Russian rapper Husky.
The Quint's WebQoof had previously debunked the same video in 2021 when it was shared as ‘fake COVID-19 bodies’ to amplify the ‘coronavirus is a hoax’ narrative during the second wave of the pandemic.
CLAIM
The short video is being share to claim that it shows fake dead bodies in Ukraine as one of the bodies is smoking a cigarette, advising people not to believe ‘media bull***t lies.’
An archived version of this post can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Using InVID, we divided the video into keyframes and ran reverse image searches on some of them on Yandex.
The results led us to a tweet in Russian from October 2021, that noted that the visuals showed behind the scenes footage for a music video by Russian rapper Husky.
The tweet was published in 2021, when the video was being shared with a COVID-19 related claim.
(Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)
The user also shared a link and a screenshot to a TikTok post, adding that it was shared by the music video’s production manager Vasya Ivanov on TikTok.
Using a virtual private network to access the footage, we saw that the TikTok post by Ivanov was published in March 2021, 11 months before Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military exercise” in Ukrainian territory.
The video’s caption noted that it showed production footage for rapper Husky’s music video titled ‘Never Ever.’
The video was uploaded in March 2021.
(Source: TikTok/Screenshot)
We looked up Ivanov’s name with the name of the song and came across a Vimeo video uploaded by Ivanov in November 2020.
The video was uploaded on 26 November 2020.
(Source: Vimeo/Screenshot)
We noticed similarities between the music video and the viral clip such as the same orange truck with black bags being visible in frames from both videos.
The same black-and-white tiled wall is seen in the background.
(Source: Vimeo/Facebook/Altered by The Quint)
We found a still from the video on Vasya Ivanov’s Instagram account as well, showing bodies being lowered from a building.
The crewmember shared a still from the video.
(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)
Russian news organisation RenTV had reported on the video’s filming process in September 2020, noting that the residents of the area were uncomfortable with ‘corpses’ hanging from buildings.
Clearly, a video showing behind the scenes footage of a Russian rap video is being revived with the false claim that it shows fake dead bodies in Ukraine amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
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