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Fact Check: Orange smoke cloud photo predates Kursk assault by nearly a decade
A photo showing a cloud of orange-tinged smoke has been falsely described as showing a chemical attack in the western Russian region of Kursk in August 2024.
The image was shared online less than a week after thousands of Ukrainian soldiers launched a surprise attack in Kursk. The cross-border incursion, Ukraine’s biggest since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, has given Kyiv military control over 82 settlements, Reuters reported.
The caption of one of the social media posts sharing the image says in part: “First picture of a CHEMICAL attack by Ukrainian artillery in KURSK !!!!!!! The Armed Forces of Ukraine used chemical weapons in the Kursk region. According to the Aida group, the enemy used ammunition filled with chlorine.”
Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of killing civilians and using shells that contained chemical weapons but at the time of writing, there have been no credible news reports of chemical weapon use in Kursk.
The photo predates Kyiv’s assault on Kursk, however, and is a still frame from a video published nearly a decade ago in 2015.
The same scene can be seen at timestamp 00:09 of a March 2015 BBC. News video titled “Islamic State’s toxic ‘chlorine gas’ bombs.”
The clip, provided by Iraqi officials, shows orange smoke rising from a controlled explosion and Iraqi officials said there was evidence that Islamic State militants were using chlorine gas in roadside bombing in Iraq, the BBC reported.
A photo taken by Reuters in March 2015 in a town north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad shows a chlorine-tinged cloud of smoke rising from a bomb detonated by Iraqi troops and Shi’ite forces.
Verdict.
Miscaptioned. The image of an orange-tinged smoke cloud came from a video published online in March 2015, nearly a decade before Ukraine’s August 2024 cross-border incursion into Russia.