By Srijit Das
A video from a video game showing a number of missiles fired at a fighter jet is viral with a false claim that the visuals show a fight between Russian military and Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner troop.
BOOM found the video does not show a glimpse of the attempted mutiny by Wagner group in Russia but is part of a user generated gameplay from ARMA 3.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently encountered a serious challenge by his once loyalist Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner group. Prigozhin, criticised the Russian leadership accusing them of incompetence and over the weekend led his troops to march towards Moscow, reported the Associated Press. The revolt, however, was short lived because of Prigozhin's deal with the Kremlin but raised some serious questions about Putin's 23-year-long nearly unchallenged leadership on the country.
The video is being shared with a caption, "Moscow. Yesterday Russian Air Force Engaging Wagner PMC Ground Troops on the M4."
Click here to view the tweet.
Another user too posted the video with a similar false claim.
Click here to view the tweet.
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Fact Check
BOOM performed a keyword search related to "Russia Air Force Missiles Video Game Combat" on YouTube and found a YouTube Shorts upload carrying the same video from March 31, 2023.
The video was uploaded on YouTube channel named Battle POPs with a caption saying, "Russia's Elite Air Force vs Ukrainian SAM Missiles Combat | MilSim Arma 3".
We also noticed that the description with the video is, "This video is a virtual game simulation. The battle simulation may differ from the real one. We simulated articles appearing in the news. ARMA Game Play Videos."
Other than these details, we found that the YouTube channel in its description section too mentioned it as a "Military Simulation Channel" who uploads videos of ARMA gameplay.
BOOM also found the official website of the ARMA 3 created by Czech video game developer Bohemia Interactive.
In the website, ARMA 3 is defined as, "Arma 3 is a combined arms military game set in a massive military sandbox. The game features massive terrains, a variety of singleplayer and multiplayer content, more than 20 vehicles and 40 weapons, a powerful scenario editor with Steam Workshop integration, and modding support."
Similar visuals of gameplay are also present on the YouTube channel of the video game developer. One such video can be seen below.
BOOM had earlier debunked multiple such video game visuals that were passed off as real-life war scenes. The fact checks can be read here.
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