Earlier this year, a video clip of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was viewed by over 110,000 people and shared 25,000 times before going offline. Rather, it was his gameplay videos for Bohemia Interactive’s Arma 3 military simulation. The fake.
“While we are pleased that Arma 3 simulates modern warfare so realistically, it could be mistaken for real combat material and used as war propaganda.” said public relations manager Pavel Křižka. “It has happened in the past (Arma 3 videos allegedly showed conflicts between Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine and even India and Pakistan), but today this content is about Ukraine.
of increasing relevance to the current conflict in “We tried to take action against this content by reporting these videos to platform providers (FB, YT, TW, IG, etc.) but it was very ineffective. An additional 10 videos are uploaded every day for each takedown, and the best way to handle this is to actively work with major media outlets and fact-checkers. I see that they have a wider reach and ability to effectively combat the spread of fake news.”
Since his February example, more videos have surfaced disguised as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But, as Krishka said, this has been going on for a long time. For example, in September 2021, an Indian news channel used Arma 3 footage to claim that Pakistan bombed Afghanistan (opens in new tab) and in May of the same year to claim Israeli air defenses.
An alleged video was also published. Discovered as Arma 3. In September 2018, Russian state media showed a clip of Arma 3 from the Russian Su-25 aircraft allegedly attacking a military convoy. This phenomenon is so common that an entire section is devoted to it on the Arma 3 Wikipedia page.
Arma is one of the most moddable games in the genre and could be one of the culprits for this bogus visual issue. Arma 3’s Steam Workshop section is full of Ukrainian and Russian cosmetics, models and conflict scenarios, all available for free download. Of course, this player-made material coexists with everything from unofficial Star Wars assets and importable T-Rexes to Warhammer Fantasy mods.