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The viral image below purports to show three TV screenshots of the same photo of a bomb, with the source of the being attributed to three different sources:

enter image description here

First image: Ukrainian Channel 5. The text translates to "Russia bombs".

Second image: Russian RUSSIA24. The text translates to "Ukrainian chastisers bombed their citizens".

Third image: Aljazeera: Israel launches airstrikes in Gaza.

What is the true origin of this photo? Additionally, are any of the news report screenshots genuine?

March Ho
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kandi
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    A reminder to commenters: If you would like to share your pithy gibes about Russian politics, please add your Twitter handle to your user profile... – Oddthinking Jul 09 '15 at 12:42
  • I find it funny that the Ukrainian news says is was Russians and the Russian news says it was Ukrainians. –  Jul 09 '15 at 23:08
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    @fredsbend it's everyday here in Russia. In old times that was between USSR and USA-EUROPE – kandi Jul 10 '15 at 06:28
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    @danpetruk: Can you explain why you created this bounty? Is it to award the current answer or would you like a more detailed answer? – George Chalhoub Jul 11 '15 at 08:55
  • It's a 9M528 which is fired form a launch vehicle called a smerch –  Jul 23 '15 at 19:52
  • I'll agree, most likely a 9M528 from a BM-30, and not from a BM-27. – jjack Jul 27 '15 at 20:07

2 Answers2

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The original photo appears to have been posted by Ukrainian soldier Andrew Zaharov on his Facebook photo album. as it predates the articles from any of the news sources below.

enter image description here

The initial hit for this image was carried out by cropping the image with Photoshop, then performing a reverse image search, which resulted in a hit to this Ukrainian news site, which has additional images of the truck which was hit by the missile. The site also mirrored Zaharov's photo above.

Google Translate of the page has the following information:

Ukrainian security officials, who are near the village of Dmitrovka Donetsk region were fired from a Russian "Hurricane." Fortunately, one of the rockets that hit in the staff car, did not explode.

Therefore, the original photo in this image appears to be an Ukrainian military truck that was hit by a Russian missile, at least according to the news page. The missile is used by both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries but not by Israel, so it is clear at least that the final instance of the missile being labelled as Israeli is false.

Furthermore, attempting Google searches for the alleged "headlines" on the 3 images did not yield the original news articles which allegedly had their screenshots taken, but instead yielded the meme-image itself. This, coupled with the fact that all 3 of the images had exactly the same size, position and colour profile made the origin of the image extremely suspicious.

Ukrainian: Росія завдає удар

Russian: Россия 24 Украинские каратели обстреляли своих граждан

English: al jazeera "war on gaza" "israel launches airstrikes"

From this, we can infer that it is likely that the creator of this image faked the "headlines" for each of the images.

While we can conclusively find that the truck was an Ukrainian vehicle (from an independent report by Reuters courtesy of Anixx's answer), it will unfortunately be impossible to determine the actual provenance of the missile. Both militaries use the exact same missile model (BM-27 Uragan), and both countries' media sources deny firing the missile in a mirror of the MH17 shootdown tragedy.

Russian source (Google translate)

During shelling Russian positions Ukrainian troops soldiers under Dmitrijevka 220-millimeter rockets Russian "Hurricane" has broken Ukrainian staff car and did not explode. This is reported by users of social network Facebook.

Ukrainian source (Google translate)

Near the village of Dmitrovka in Luhansk Russian rocket "Hurricane" has broken Ukrainian staff car and did not explode.

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March Ho
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  • Here is a higher resolution version of this image: http://www.whitelinefirm.nl/2014/09/18/click-see-picdump-xxl-edition-2/16-17/ – pabouk - Ukraine stay strong Jul 09 '15 at 21:07
  • It is unfortunately not conclusive who's missile is this. Ukrainian or Russian? – Jose Luis Jul 10 '15 at 08:50
  • A reverse image search on my side lead to the first discussed reddit on 2014-09-12, where some guy "claims" the rocket launcher is a BM-30 Smearch and the missile a 9M55K: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/2g4sjk/near_miss_xpost_rukranianconflict/ – ikaerom Jul 11 '15 at 13:07
  • @Moreaki I did find that page while researching this answer, although I didn't cite it as I didn't find it sufficiently authoritative. All of the news sources seemed to identify it as a BM-27 Uragan. – March Ho Jul 11 '15 at 13:14
  • The diameter seems to make it a rocket fired from a BM-30. – jjack Jul 27 '15 at 20:21
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This is a Soviet truck, ZiL-131:

enter image description here enter image description here

which is very unlikely to be used in Palestine.

So the claim it is from Palestine is wrong. The bouth Russian and Ukrainian media claimed the truck to be Ukrainian, but attribute the strike differently, Ukrainian sources say it was hit by a Russian missle, while some Russian sources say it was mistakenly hit by the Ukrainians themselves. The incident had been reported by other agencies, such as Reuters as well (with a photo by Reuters own correspondent David Mdzinarishvili included).

The incident happened near Dmitrovka at the base of the 12th batallion of territorial defense 12 September 2014.

At least in Russia and Ukraine the incident had been widely reported, but the alleged screenshots from the media outlets seem to be faked as thorough explained in the other answer, possibly with satirical purposes to expose the propaganda techniques in modern media.

enter image description here enter image description here

Anixx
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    Why is the downvote? – Anixx Jul 11 '15 at 10:07
  • Please provide references to support your claims. The first image is NOT an Soviet truck. It is a [toy model](http://scalemodels.ru/articles/7560-obzor-ICM-1-35-zil-131--vezdekhod-semiletki.html). Your claim that it is unlikely to be used in Palestine is unreferenced. Your claim about Ukrainian and Russian sources needs references. Your claim that it was actually reported in Russia this way needs references. – Oddthinking Jul 11 '15 at 10:09
  • @Oddthinking yes, it is a toy model of a Soviet truck, so what? – Anixx Jul 11 '15 at 10:16
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    We are looking for definitive answers, not "In my opnion, it looks a little like the toy, which, in my opinion, would never get exported to Palestine." – Oddthinking Jul 11 '15 at 10:29
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    @Oddthinking it is quite evident that the truck is ZiL-131 and the toy is only for illustration. – Anixx Jul 11 '15 at 10:37
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    Do you have any source that conclusively identifies the truck as a ZIL 131? The Wikipedia page seems to mention that it "has the same equipment" (not sure what that means) as a number of other different truck models. – March Ho Jul 11 '15 at 12:11
  • @March Ho there are a lot of protos of the truck http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20140919&t=2&i=974994020&w=976&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2014-09-19T195222Z_4_GM1EA9K089G01_RTRMADP_0_UKRAINE-CRISIS , http://storage1.censor.net.ua/images/9/0/5/6/905643b3f078282e8feefb6369935f2e/511x768.jpg which conclusively show what it is. No other model can be confused with it. It is a quite typical Soviet military truck. – Anixx Jul 11 '15 at 12:34
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    Russia is well-known for exporting military equipment. I would not be surprised to find a ZiL-131 in service anywhere in the world. – Mark Mar 25 '20 at 21:05