Old video mischaracterized as showing troops at the Ukraine-Russia border in 2022

Ongoing tensions at the Ukraine-Russia border have drawn international media attention and misinformation, including a video that’s being wrongly described as showing military forces on the country’s border with Russia.

"Ukrainian border right now!" reads a Jan. 27 tweet that shows a video panning over a snaking line of troops and tanks. The post has the hashtags #Ukraine, #Russia and #UkraineConflict.

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) 

Russia recently dispatched 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine. But the Jan. 27 video on Twitter was posted online nearly two years ago.

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Doing reverse image searches of stills of the video, we found a March 5, 2020, story and YouTube post by the Ukrainian site Defense Express, which describes its mission as promoting "the defense, security and development of Ukraine," according to an English translation of the "about us" section on its website. 

An English translation of the title of the YouTube post says, "Mechanized brigade of the armed forces of Ukraine: what is the combat power of the army." According to an English translation of the story, "Defense Express filmed one of the mechanized brigades of the armed forces of Ukraine, which conducted a control practical exercise at one of the training grounds."

The story doesn’t say the location of the training grounds.  

We rate claims that this photo shows the Ukrainian border right now, as the tweet claims, False.