White van filmed near Crocus City Hall has a Belarusian license plate, not Ukrainian

By: Iryna Hnatiuk
March 25 2024

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Screenshot of a social media post falsely claiming a van seen near the Crocus Theater, Moscow, has Ukrainian license plates.

After the incident at the Crocus Concert Hall near Moscow, Russia, which was later called a terrorist attack, social media users claimed that a white van with old-style Ukrainian license plates was spotted near the venue. Social media users are claiming this indicates a Ukrainian connection to the incident.

However, a closer examination of the video clearly shows that the license plates do not resemble Ukrainian ones, neither old nor those currently in use. Online research reveals that the format of the license plate matches that of Belarusian plates.

Context

Crocus City Hall, on the outskirts of Moscow, was about to host a concert by the rock group Picnic when gunmen entered the foyer just after 20:00 (17:00 GMT) on Friday evening. More than 130 people were killed as gunmen stormed the complex. In a brief statement on Friday, IS announced it was behind the attack. 

Immediately after the incident, claims began to spread on social networks, linking various parties. One such claim was that Ukraine was behind the attack. In support of this, users on the social network X (formerly Twitter) shared a video (archived here) featuring a white van with a caption suggesting that this vehicle had old-style Ukrainian license plates and was identified near the incident site.

Closer view

It is impossible to examine the license plate fully due to a watermark covering part of it. However, a part of the plate is legible, with the characters "94 ІХ-6" visible.

Screenshot of a social media post showing the van with the license plate visible. (Source: X/Screenshot)

Current Ukrainian plates include a two-letter regional prefix followed by four digits. At the end, there is a two-letter serial suffix. The one on the image doesn’t match any example of the previous Ukrainian series, with two Cyrillic letters at the end. It also differs from the current series, which ends with two Latin letters.

Old and current Ukrainian license plates. (Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine/Screenshot)

The plate in the video follows the Belarus system, which has four numerals followed by two letters, a hyphen, and one numeral.

License plates that are currently in use in Belarus. (Source: Belarus Today)

Ukrainian authorities and the White House denied Ukraine’s involvement in the attack. Adrienne Watson, the U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman, said that IS bore "sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "and other scum" are trying to "blame someone else" for the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall near Moscow.

Conclusion

The claim that the white van featured in the widely shared video had a Ukrainian license plate is incorrect. The video clearly shows that the format differs from any that is or has ever been used in Ukraine, and the format of the number matches that used in Belarus. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.