This video I saw close to the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows the Ghost of Kyiv shooting down Russian aircraft. I’ve seen this video on many different platforms but the only one I could get a good link to was on YouTube shorts even though it was originally posted on Tik Tok. The video shows the Ghost of kyiv dog fighting a couple Russian aircraft. It shows the Ghost of kyiv shooting down two aircraft with missiles. The title of the video is Ghost of Kyiv shooting down Russian jets.

1. Checking the comments, whenever I’m unsure of a video I’ve seen I like to check the comments. I always find that there are some helpful comments that help to explain what the video is about, or in our case the authenticity of the video. I started looking through the 342 comments on this post and saw right away some people pointing out that the video is from a game called Digital Combat Simulator (DCS). The top comment pointed it out. Some of the comments said it was real but the number of likes on the top comment means most people agree with what this guy is saying.

2. Verifying, even though most people seem to agree that the video is fake. I decided to search the exact same title and added the word fake at the end to see if anyone has said anything about this post. The first thing to come up was an article that claims the footage is from a video game and not really from Ukraine. In the article they also say the footage is from Digital Combat Simulator (DCS). The article deemed the video fake.

After reading the article I figured out that the original video was not trying to claim that it was real combat. But was instead trying to show respect for the Ghost of Kyiv by showing him in the game. The video’s spread by other people claiming the video is real is fake. The video is just footage from DCS.