A video has gone viral on social media, with users claiming it shows proof that the destruction of a historic cathedral in Odesa on the night of July 22 to 23 was staged by Ukrainian authorities. They argue that a woman in the video picks up the debris with too much ease for it to be real. However, the woman is actually picking up a light material, most likely polystyrene, so this does not prove that the attack was staged.
If you only have a minute:
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Some Twitter users claim that the destruction of the Odesa cathedral was staged by the Ukrainian authorities.
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They point to a video in which a woman can be seen easily lifting pieces that look like stones or concrete. They believe this is proof that the debris is not real and that the whole thing was made up.
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However, when looking at a better quality video, it becomes clear that the debris is made of light materials, probably polystyrene, and not pieces of concrete, as the poor quality viral video would suggest.
The fact-check in detail:
On the night of July 22 to 23, 2023, Russian forces struck the historic city centre of Odesa with missiles, seriously damaging the Transfiguration Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The attack left two people dead and 22 injured.
A few days later, on July 25, a video went viral on Twitter with users claiming it shows proof that the attack on the cathedral was staged. The post has been seen more than 2 million times.
The video shows an excerpt of a Sky News programme in which two presenters comment on a report about the destruction of the Odesa cathedral. The report shows a woman removing rubble from the cathedral. "Keep a close eye on the women carrying the 'heavy stones'" wrote the author of the original Twitter post. According to him, it would have been impossible for the woman to carry the pieces of stone or concrete so easily. He concluded that "It's all just a film".
On July 25, the video was also posted on TikTok, where it garnered 25 million views, and on Facebook.
A video shows the debris was made of a light material, most likely polystyrene
A white and grey "R" logo can be seen in the top left-hand corner of the report shown on the screen in front of the two journalists. This is the logo of "Rudaw", a media outlet in Iraqi Kurdistan.
On the Rudaw website, we found the video broadcast in better quality. At 01'31 of the video, we saw that the debris the woman picked up is not concrete, but rather a light material made up of small white bubbles that resembles polystyrene.
At 02'25, the same woman can be seen carrying at least eight pieces of the same material.
Other videos of the clean-up of the church after the bombing show that many sheets of this white material were removed from the rubble. Pieces of wood, bits of paint and other materials were also picked up and cleaned.
Russia insists it targeted strategic locations
Moscow, for its part, insists that its strikes were aimed exclusively at places where "terrorist acts against Russia were being organised".
"Missiles were fired against peaceful towns, apartment blocks, a cathedral (...)", said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 23. "There will certainly be reprisals against Russian terrorists for what they did to Odesa."
This is not the first time that images have been hijacked by pro-Russian accounts to deny the casualties and damage caused by Russian forces.
