A video of a dramatic mushroom cloud explosion has been shared online with captions saying “tonight could be Ukraine’s last night” and listing supposed military losses.
But this video isn’t real. It was made with artificial intelligence (AI) and has been circulating online for more than a year.
Using reverse image search we traced the video to a 2025 AFP fact check about the clip being shared with claims it showed an Iranian nuclear weapons test.
AFP found the video was first shared on YouTube on 16 May 2025 and was labelled as an “AI video”. That version has since been deleted.
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We also ran the video through Meta’s AI detector, which said “AI signatures were found”.
We could find no reports that 10 Ukrainian fighter jets and two airbases were destroyed or that 500 soldiers were killed in one night either, as the posts appear to claim.
It can be difficult to tell what is real online. Our toolkit can help you check if a clip is authentic before sharing.
