A YouTube channel used old clips of a guided missile destroyer to claim that Russia gave the country a warship. This is not true.
Posted on July 19, the nearly two-minute-long video bore a headline which, to feign legitimacy, used the name of GMA News’ 24 Oras program. The text read:
“24 ORAS EXPRESS JULY 20, 2023 REGALO NG RUSSIA IBINIGAY NA (RUSSIA’S GIFT ALREADY GIVEN)! PILIPINAS VINES NEWS VIRAL.”
Its thumbnail carried a “breaking news” label and featured a photo of the supposed vessel with images of the Russian and Philippine flags added. Meanwhile, the video claimed the “gift” had already arrived and proceeded to show clips of the warship’s “tests” at sea.
This is false. Neither the Philippine nor Russian governments have made announcements of such a donation taking place.
The video shows United States (U.S.) Navy’s guided missile destroyer Daniel Inouye (DDG 118) in its sea trials in 2020.
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, the company that manufactured the warship, uploaded the original video on YouTube on Jan. 5, 2021.
The video stated that the clips were taken during USS Daniel Inouye’s Alpha trials, where it sailed into the North Atlantic in December 2020.
The video was posted three weeks after Russia’s agriculture ministry held the Business Mission of Russian companies in Manila that aimed to explore potential business opportunities between the two countries.
On June 23, Russian Ambassador to the Philippines Marat Pavlov said that Manila and Moscow must “cooperate” regardless of alliance with some countries or conflicts with other neighbors.
The Philippines was among the 141 countries in the United Nations that supported a resolution demanding Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine.
The video uploaded by the YouTube channel Ella vloggs (created on Feb. 15, 2019), with 305,000 subscribers, has 4,391 views as of writing.
VERA Files Fact Check previously debunked other disinformation from this channel. Last March, the channel uploaded a similar video about Russia donating a warship to the country. (Read Russia DID NOT donate a warship ‘now in Mindanao’)
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