In October 2023, a video was widely circulated in which a Hamas militant allegedly thanks Kyiv for sending weapons to the group. We checked whether there are reasons to trust this information.

The viral 12-second video shows weapons and ammunition laid out on the floor, with a male voiceover uttering a phrase believed to be in Arabic. On the evening of October 7, with the caption “Hamas openly thanked Ukraine for selling them weapons,” the video was distributed by Telegram channels “Live broadcast"(885,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Russia now"(327,000), "Truthfulness"(254,000), "Putin on Telegram"(240,000), etc. According to the TGStat service, in the first 24 hours more than 600 posts of similar content were published, which were viewed at least 8 million times. The story was widely covered in the media, notes of gratitude to Hamas were published on websites Newsland, "Pravda.ru» «InoSMI", EADaily, "Satellite", etc. The vast majority of publications cite as a source the video allegedly published in Middle Eastern Telegram channels, but do not provide links to them.

The voiceover in the video is really pronounces a phrase in Arabic that translates to “I thank the Ukrainian forces for selling us these weapons. We will use it against you, our enemies, we will use it against Israel." However, the video lacks details that allow us to identify the place and time of filming. It is also impossible to tell whether the original audio track is used in the recording or whether it was recorded separately and subsequently overdubbed using a special program.

There are no details clearly pointing to Hamas in the video - in particular, the group’s symbols are not used, although this is a characteristic feature of the video design on the official website and in Telegram channel movements. IN web archive There are saved versions of the main page of the Hamas website for October 7 and 8, and they do not contain messages or statements about weapons from Ukraine being obtained by the militants. In channels allegedly associated with the group, including those that were previously studied “Verified”, there is no such video either.

The earliest “Verified” post found with this video appeared in the Telegram channel “Freshness"(720,000 views) October 7 at 22:44 Moscow time. No traces of it could be found in any popular Middle Eastern sources, where the video was allegedly also posted. A search for news in Arabic on Google does not bring significant results, and the first (of two found) publication with this video and caption in Arabic on Telegram was posted in the channel ألكسندر نازاروف (“Alexander Nazarov”, 6600 views) on October 7 at 22:47 Moscow time. The video was accompanied by an almost literal translation of the text from “Freshness,” which published its post three minutes earlier. Judging by the results of the monitoring of social networks, the video was first posted in the Russian-language segment of Telegram.

At the request of “Verified”, the video was studied by a military expert Ilya Abishev. According to him, the video shows an M-4 assault rifle, M2 and M240 machine guns, presumably a BREN 2 assault rifle and a tube from the Javelin anti-tank system. I agree with Abishev and interviewed by the Georgian fact-checking project “Myth detector» weapons specialist Giga Inashvili - he, however, suggests that in the frame there may be a tube not from the Javelin, but from the NLAW complex.

This weapon really supplied to Ukraine allies following the start of a full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. However, the experts with whom the fact checkers of the Les Observateurs TV channel project spoke France 24, note that some of the weapons shown (anti-tank systems and the M240 machine gun) have never been seen in the hands of Hamas militants. In the three weeks since this video appeared, there has been no evidence of the use of M240, Javelin or NLAW by members of the group in either Israeli, Palestinian or any other official sources or reputable media.

However, Russian officials and pro-government speakers say the opposite. About Ukrainian weapons from Hamas a few hours before the publication of the verified video wrote in his Telegram channel and said in an interview “Arguments and facts» Evgeniy Satanovsky - orientalist and in the recent past a regular participant in talk shows on state television channels. The Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation stated the same thing. Dmitry Medvedev. No evidence is provided, although the statements provoke a response from Ukrainian officials. So, on October 9, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on its Facebook page wrotethat the Russian authorities, as part of a campaign to discredit Kyiv, transferred captured weapons from Ukraine to Hamas (in this case, there is also no confirmation in the publication). Already on October 10th in "Komsomolskaya Pravda“This was regarded as Kyiv’s recognition of the presence of Ukrainian weapons in Hamas.

This is far from the only unsubstantiated story about smuggled weapons from Ukraine being used against Israel.

A similar statement to the verified one, but without an attached video as confirmation, spread on October 7 in English. Fact checkers Lead Stories came to the conclusion that this statement has no basis. It was posted on the social network X by the Leading Report website profile, while the tweet itself does not contain any links, and on this site, which is run by anonymous authors, by that time there were basically no articles about Hamas.
Two weeks later, the Ukrainian fact-checking project “No Nonsense” analyzed another video clip with gratitude to Ukraine in Arabic, which allegedly demonstrated the AT4 and NLAW anti-tank systems. It is noted that the frame shows tubes that are no longer suitable for combat (these are disposable weapons). Fact checkers suggest that they were collected at battlefields in Ukraine. It is noted that the video does not contain Hamas symbols, and it is impossible to determine the location of the shooting.
Feykov turned out to be And plot with gratitude to “corrupt Ukraine for weapons for Hamas” from the imam of a mosque in Paris. A screenshot of a note in Le Parisien, where a corresponding statement was allegedly published on October 13, in particular, was posted in his Telegram channel by a Russian TV presenter Ruslan Ostashko (110,000 views). However, there was no such article on the website of the French edition, and the imam himself did not spoke with a pacifist sermon.
"Checked" previously sorted it out a video in which former porn actress Mia Khalifa allegedly talks about supplying weapons to Hamas militants from Ukraine - the video was also falsified. And footage from the video to which this analysis is dedicated was subsequently used to create fake story BBC about Bellingcat's alleged investigation into Ukraine's supply of weapons to Hamas.

The narrative that weapons transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine by the allies penetrate the black market of different countries is also not new in itself. Previously, Verified studied reports of its use by protesters during the riots in France in the summer of 2023, as well as the appearance of Ukrainian grenade launchers at the disposal of the Mexican drug cartel. Both statements turned out to be fake.

Thus, there is no evidence that the video being analyzed shows weapons previously sent by Western allies to Ukraine, nor that they have any connection to the Hamas group. The distribution of the video began in Russian-language Telegram channels without links to primary sources, which, judging by the data studied by Verified, never existed.

Cover photo: still image from viral video