By: Rajini KG
July 19 2023
Old footage of Russian attack on oil refinery shared as recent attack on Odesa port
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
This footage is not from the recent attack at the port of Odesa but is from a Russian attack on an oil refinery in Odesa in 2022.
Claim ID 920c6807
Context
A video claiming to show a missile attack at the port of Odesa is circulating on social media. A Twitter user shared a video on July 18, 2023, with the caption, "Briefly about how Ukraine shot down all six Kalibr missiles last night in Odessa." The tweet included three screenshots taken on different timestamps from the video. The post has garnered 1,156 likes and 289 retweets at the time of writing. The archive of the post can be found here.
Russia attacked the port of Odesa on the Black Sea in Ukraine on July 18, 2023. Ukrainian forces reported a barrage of six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles fired overnight which damaged several homes and port infrastructure, according to Reuters.
However, the claim is false. The video is from the Odesa oil refinery attack in 2022, not from the recent Odesa port attack.
In Fact
Through a reverse image search, we found that the video is a year old. The video was shared on Twitter on April 4, 2022, with the title, "#Russia #Ukraine #UkraineRussia Footage of Russian cruise missile attacks on #Odesa oil infrastructures on April 3, 2022. A post on the Russian social media website VK also posted the same video one year ago with the title, "The destruction of the Odessa oil refinery by Russian high-precision missiles. Demilitarization is gaining momentum."
The oil refinery attack was widely covered by international news agencies. Reuters reported that an oil refinery in the central Poltava region was damaged by Russian attacks close to the port city of Odesa. Dmytro Lunin, governor of the Poltava region, stated that the refinery was completely damaged and could not function.
Russian media organization RBC News reported on April 3, 2022, that the Russian defense ministry confirmed that Russian missiles damaged an oil refinery and three fuel and lubricant storage facilities.
The Verdict
A video from 2022 of the Odesa oil refinery attack was reshared on social media and is not related to the recent Russian attack on the port of Odesa in Ukraine. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.