Old video passed off as recent Russian 'ballistic missile strike' on Ukraine

What is the claim? 

A video of an airstrike on a building is circulating on social media, claiming to show recent footage of Russia attacking Ukraine with an “intercontinental ballistic missile.” 

One such post on X (archived here) featured the viral clip with the caption, “Russian sources publish a wider view of the impact of its new 'test' inter-continental ballistic missile, which hit #Dnipro just before dawn this morning. Russia isn’t playing around. (sic)” The archived versions of other similar posts shared on X can be found here, here, and here. 

The video with similar claims has also gone viral on Facebook, and the archived versions of those can be viewed here and here.

 Screenshots of viral posts circulating on social media. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

The claims surfaced after Russia launched a new medium-range ballistic missile, Oreshnik, at Ukraine, targeting the Yuzhmash military-industrial complex in Dnipro. The attack was reportedly in response to the U.S. permitting Ukraine to use Western weapons. This attack marks an escalation in Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

However, the video now in question was captured in August 2023 when Russia struck Ukraine’s Yuzhmash arms plant in Dnipro and does not show the recent attack.

What did we find?

A reverse image search of the screenshot from the viral clip showed that the channel RVvoenkor posted this video on Telegram (archived here) on August 15, 2023. The caption, written in Russian, details that the video shows the “Russian army firing missile attacks on the Yuzhmash plant—a key enterprise of the military industry of Ukraine.”

Comparison between the viral clip and the footage shared on Telegram in August 2023. 
(Source: X/Telegram/Screenshot)

Additionally, the same video was uploaded on YouTube by the channel 'DISSKOTEKA' (archived here) on August 16, 2023, with the title: “Video of missile strikes on Yuzhmash production complex in Dnepropetrovsk.”

A Google search further directed us to multiple Russian local media outlets that reported about the attack in August 2023. Reports from Lenta.RU and Pavlograd News published on August 15, 2023, and August 16, 2023, respectively, featured the viral video stating that Russia struck Ukraine’s Yuzhmash military-industrial complex in Dnepropetrovsk (known as Dnipro), which the Ukrainian military administration confirmed.


The verdict

An old video of Russia striking Ukraine’s Yuzhmash arms plant in August 2023 is now being shared out of context, with an incorrect claim that the footage shows the recent 2024 attack.