By Hazel Gandhi
A video purporting to show the recent blast at the Kakhovka dam in Russia-occupied Ukraine is viral online. BOOM found that the viral video is from November 2022 and not recent.
The Kakhovka dam is a Soviet-era dam located in Ukraine's southern Kherson region. As per reports, a blast on June 6 destructed the dam and caused flooding in the nearby areas, including agricultural land and villages. While it is unknown what caused the blast, both Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for it.
The viral video of the explosion at Nova Kakhovka is being shared in this context and peddled as recent.
A caption on Twitter reads, "#BREAKING: The moment that the Nova Kakhovka dam was blown up was purportedly captured on video. If this footage is real, it would certainly refute claims that there was no explosion."
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
A video report by Times Now on the recent blast includes a clip showing the old blast as well. The caption reads, "The major dam in southern Ukraine collapsed early on May 6, triggering floods, endangering crops, and threatening drinking water supplies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office that at least 150 tons of machine oil have been released into the Dnieper River following the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant's dam." The date of the blast mentioned in the caption, May 6, is also incorrect.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the clip is not recent, and from an older blast at the Kakhovka dam, which happened in November, 2022.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the video on Google led us to a tweet from November 12, 2022 that carried similar visuals. The caption read, "Russian media publish a video of exploding the bridge across Dnipro in the area of Kakhivska Hydroelectric power plant."
Using this information, we looked for more reports about the incident and found the same video shared by The Guardian from November 12. The headline of the story read, 'Footage shows massive explosion at dam in Kherson – video'
Click here to view. A similar report by the BBC can be seen here.
The Guardian, in its report, cited Russian news site Izvestiya as one of the sources. We searched for the report on Izvestiya's website and found a story from November 12 with the same visuals. The report details how a bridge blew up at Kherson's Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.
Click here to view.
A report by Reuters from the same date mentions how "both sides have repeatedly accused each (other) of planning to breach the dam using explosives."
As for the recent blast at the dam on June 6, 2023, visuals shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy show significant destruction of the dam and flooding in the area.
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