- A viral video of a Russian Lancet drone strike claimed to show a Ukrainian tank being destroyed.
- But Ukrainian forces told Insider it was just a wooden decoy meant to trick Russia.
Russian social media has been crowing over a video showing the destruction wrought by one of its drones, following claims that it had taken out a Ukrainian tank.
The dramatic footage is shot in a rural location, and combines the perspectives of a surveillance drone and a strike drone.
The Telegram channel Kremlin Pachka, which posted the video on Sunday, has celebrated it as a Lancet strike on Ukrainian a tank near Krasnolimansky — the Russian term for Lyman — in the Donetsk Oblast.
And Vladimir Solovyov – one of Russia's top TV propagandists – shared the video with his 1.3 million followers.
The only problem? The "tank" was a decoy made out of wood, according to Ukraine's Lieutenant Commander Oleksandr Afanasyev.
In a video celebrating the ruse, Afanasyev, who is part of the 2nd Armored Group of the 54th Brigade and is stationed near Lyman, shares an image of a decoy tank, while shaking his head in disbelief and laughing that the Russians had fallen for it.
The "tank" seen burning in the video "is made of empty boxes from 155 mm shells," Afanasyev told Insider.
In his footage, a jumble of wood can clearly be seen burning, with no trace of metal visible.
Afanasyev told Insider that he and his troops installed the decoy around a month ago, in place of real tanks that had been there.
They decided to install it after one of their tanks was damaged by a Russian air strike, he said, adding that Russian forces had been carrying out reconnaissance in the area.
An unnamed representative of the 54th Brigade corroborated Afanasyev's story to Insider.
The left-hand image below shows the decoy, Afanasyev said. On the right is the charred remains of the Russian strike.
The first picture was taken earlier this year, he said, when asked about the lack of foliage.
Giving weight to Afanasyev's claim that the two videos depict the same location, stills below from both his video (right) and the Russian one (left) appear to show the same damaged rooftop and strike location.
Afanasyev says he isn't sure why the Russian video is doing so well on social media, as he thinks it clearly shows that the supposed tank is not real.
"I do not understand why after watching the video where it is clearly visible that it is made of wood, they still posted this video," he said.
At the same time, speaking of Solovyov, he said that "this scoundrel's job is to hang all sorts of rubbish on his ears," alluding to a Russian idiom meaning to mislead others.
"They fool their own people," he said.