Old footage and CGI clips used to spread false claim of Iranian retaliation against Ukraine
On July 27, an Arabic post on X claimed that Iran had retaliated against Ukraine’s July 25 strikes on Iranian vessels in the Caspian Sea, with U.S. support. It included a video composed of four clips supposedly showing an Iranian attack.
The post drew about 1,600 likes, 360 reposts, and 50 comments including some that questioned the video’s authenticity. A similar post has also circulated on X.
Annie Lab can confirm that the video does not show the alleged retaliation. The four clips either show a bombing in Israel that took place four months ago or a scene digitally created.
There have been no credible reports that Iran carried out a retaliatory strike against Ukraine, and there is no evidence that the United States supported any such attack.
What happened on July 25
According to media reports, Ukraine said on July 25 that it struck vessels carrying Iran-linked military cargo in the Caspian Sea, which is an essential logistical channel for Russia and Iran, two countries entangled in wars. CNN quoted Iranian officials as saying one sailor was killed and three others injured.
Al Jazeera reported that Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the strike “cannot go unanswered” and argued that it violated the United Nations Charter, while Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, told Araghchi in a phone call that it was “not intentional” and that Ukraine has “no desire to escalate tensions.”
Meanwhile, Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, wrote on X that “any attacks on Iran always come with a cost, and that remains true today; the U.S. and Israel are well aware of this.”
However, as of this writing, Annie Lab has found no reports of a retaliatory strike by Iran against Ukraine following the incident.
Video verification
The video in the post consists of four clips that are presented as proof of an Iranian retaliatory strike against Ukraine, but none of the clips shows that.
The first clip, from 0:01 to 0:02, matches footage used in NBC News coverage of Iranian missile strikes in Dimona, Israel, on March 21.
The remaining three clips, from 0:03 to 0:17, appear to be CGI or enhanced videos. Annie Lab found original versions of each clip clearly labeled as digital renderings and some carrying a watermark reading “Armed Forces Archives.”
Clips in the viral video (left) resemble CGI footage (right); the watermark in the original was cropped out.
In the comparison video above, Annie Lab muted the audio track from the original version, which featured people’s’ screaming voices and sound of distant explosions, because it included swearing.
A fact-check published on July 15 by the Brazilian newspaper Estadao debunked a similar claim involving identical clips from “Armed Forces Archives.”
It found that the original upload was posted on March 2 by a Facebook account of the same name (archived here).
The footage was described as a digitally rendered hypothetical scenario showing Iran striking Israel. The Facebook account regularly publishes CGI videos portraying military scenarios.
