Do the videos circulating on the networks prove that “Vladimir Putin is moving nuclear missiles”?

While the Russian president has raised the nuclear threat against the West, a video calls out on social networks. Internet users assure that “Vladimir Putin is moving nuclear weapons”. These are actually preparations for the annual military parade on May 9.

These videos, which are circulating on social networks, are particularly worrying, in the midst of the war in Ukraine and while Vladimir Putin has once again raised the nuclear threat, during his annual speech to the Nation, Thursday February 29. We see a column of military trucks, on a road, in the middle of the night, transporting missiles. Russian flags hang from vehicle windows. Internet users who share these images claim, in the caption, that “Vladimir Putin is moving nuclear weapons across Russia!”. Others are even aimed at Westerners: “Russia doesn’t play, NATO and the CIA, you can’t win”. True or false ?

An authentic and recent video, but taken out of context

The video circulating is authentic, recent and we can see nuclear weapons, but the interpretation of Internet users is false. The video is taken out of context. These images were broadcast on Tuesday February 27 by the Russian Ministry of Defense on its Telegram account and reported by Russian media. But, in the caption, the ministry explains that these are preparations for the military parade on May 9, on Moscow’s Red Square. These images therefore do not at all prove that Vladimir Putin is preparing a nuclear attack.

“Yars mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers arrive in Alabino in the Moscow region to prepare for the military parade on Red Square”, writes the ministry. The Yars is a Russian mobile intercontinental ballistic missile system capable of carrying nuclear warheads. It entered service in 2010 to modernize Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.

Russia regularly shares images of preparations for the military parade, images that are often diverted

These images are not unusual. Almost every year, the Russian ministry shares them as the military parade approaches. On YouTube, we found similar videos published in 2022 and 2018, even before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. The images are almost identical each time. They are filmed at night, in almost the same locations, the trucks and the missiles preparing to parade are the same, and the caption is, apart from a few words, a copy and paste.

Almost systematically, these videos are taken out of context on social networks, by pro-Russian or conspiracy accounts. And the context in which these images are broadcast makes them even more viral. In 2022, the war in Ukraine began. This year, tensions between Russia and Ukraine’s allies around the “nuclear threat”. We must therefore be vigilant every year at this time, as the military parade approaches.