The Russian OSCE Mission, on its official Twitter account, posted about the 23rd anniversary of the NATO air campaign.
In this post, this mission described the event of the 1999 NATO air campaign as an aggression against Serbia, the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
But the photo in this post is not about the NATO alliance's air campaign against the Serbian (then Yugoslav) army. In fact, this image depicts the war in Iraq in 2003.
Link to the post on the Twitter profile of the Russian Mission to the OSCE:
After researching through search engines, hibrid.info found this photo showing images from the explosions in Baghdad (Iraq) in 2003, published in American media such as "CNN" (photo number 3) and "MSN.com" (photo number 3). (see here and here)
It is not the first time that the same photograph has been claimed to be an image of the NATO air campaign in 1999.
The Serbian-language portal “Kosovo-online.com” did the same (see here), as well as the Russian Embassy in South Africa (see here), which have also been verified by the hibrid.info staff.
Analyze:
The Russian mission to the OSCE has published an image on its official Twitter account showing a moment of several bombings, which it has tried to present as belonging to the NATO air campaign in 1999.
But, after research conducted by hibrid.info, this photograph was found, which dates back to 2003 and took place in Iraq.
This photograph was also published a few days ago on the Serbian-language portal "Kosovo-online.com", as well as on the official Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in South Africa, which also tried to present it as an image of the NATO air campaign.
After fact-checking analysis based on the work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this post by the Russian embassy as "Fake News".
Reasoning:
The "Fake News" rating is given to media reports that are entirely the product of a medium that itself contains factually incorrect claims or information.
Content that is considered fake news can be reliably determined to have been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.