Multiple social media accounts falsely argue the attack is fake because a woman in the video can be seen picking up the debris with a little too much ease.
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00:00 was the Russian airstrike on a cathedral in Odessa staged?
00:03 That`s what some Twitter accounts are claiming, sharing one video they believe is evidence.
00:08 But is it true?
00:15 The Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa, southern Ukraine, was damaged by a Russian airstrike
00:20 at the end of July, 2023. Two people were killed and 22 were wounded. In the following
00:27 days volunteers helped clear the rubble. But certain social media users are claiming the
00:32 attack was staged, sharing this low-quality footage of a clip from a Sky News report of
00:37 people cleaning up debris after the strike.
00:40 Zelensky was very angry at the attack on Odessa overnight and he`s vowed that they will defeat
00:48 the Russian evil. I wonder how he`ll do that. Odessa has been the target, but is it just
00:55 because of gray? Why is Russia carrying on with this relentless onslaught?
01:01 They claim that because the woman has no issue carrying what they believe are concrete blocks,
01:06 then that`s proof that the airstrike was fake. One Twitter user even goes as far as to say
01:11 it`s all just a film, suggesting the people in the report are actors carrying movie props.
01:17 By doing a reverse image search, we found the original news report produced by Rudaw,
01:22 a media outlet based in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
01:26 The superior quality of the video shows the woman holding a material made up of small
01:30 white bubbles resembling polystyrene. It`s a material that`s commonly used in construction
01:36 as insulation and is quite light.
01:40 Other fact-checkers, including those from the U.K.-based firm Logically, also came to
01:44 similar conclusions.
01:46 The July attack was the second time the Transfiguration Cathedral was hit by a Russian military strike.
01:52 The church was destroyed back in 1936 and rebuilt starting in the early 2000s.
01:58 This is not the first time that pro-Kremlin accounts have spread false claims in order
02:03 to deny the casualties or damage caused by Russian forces. Like, for example, claiming
02:08 that the war in Ukraine is staged.
02:11 These false claims completely disregard that more than 9,000 civilians, including 500 children,
02:17 have been killed since Russia`s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the U.N.
02:21 Human Rights Monitoring Mission.
02:24 For more fact-checks and investigations, check out our website, Euronews.com.
02:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]