By Fact Check Bureau: Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine back in February, social media has witnessed a surge of questionable media regarding the war, be it gory visuals from other countries or high-octane war videos that are really footage from video games.
One particular kind of media that’s often widely shared online claims to show the creation of propaganda videos or fake visuals from the war. One such is a 28-second-long clip that allegedly shows Ukrainians filming panicked civilians running and screaming.
El circ d'UcraÃna, el espectacle te de continuar els noticiaris no poden parar https://t.co/HipuJH1tir — Carles Codina Calm (@xiricc) November 17, 2022
AFWA's investigation found that this video was from Birmingham, England — not Ukraine. It shows a science fiction film being shot.
A reverse search of the keyframes from the viral clip led us to the YouTube channel of Richard Wood, who shared this video on April 8, 2013. This proves that this clip is almost a decade old and therefore completely unrelated to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The video was titled, “Invasion Planet Earth BTS run for your life Birmingham”. The video’s description read, “Filming running crowd scene in Birmingham City centre for sci-fi feature film Invasion Planet Earth (2019) Dir Simon Cox.”
We looked for “Invasion Planet Earth” online and found the 2019 film that was directed by Simon Cox. The film’s IMDb page listed Richard Wood as a co-producer. As per Wood’s YouTube, he is a “...
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