Is the video of the Houthis attacking four US warships in the Red Sea true?

In February 2024, social networks and the media showed footage of a naval battle: the video allegedly captured Yemeni militants firing ballistic missiles at ships of the American and British fleets. We have verified the accuracy of this entry.

24 second video with "footage" real sea ​​battle" in poor quality has been distributed on the RuNet since February 7. According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, the video was published on Telegram by more than 470 channels, in total their posts received about 3 million views. For example, in the channel of TV presenter Ruslan Ostashko (112,000 views) video accompanies this caption: “The Yemeni Houthis have attacked four US warships in the Red Sea over the past 24 hours. The Royal Navy's HMS Diamond was reported to have been seriously damaged. Although Britain denies any damage, the ship was removed from the Houthi attack zone. The USS Labone was also hit by ballistic missiles." Sometimes TBCthat six anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired.

However, the total number of ships attacked differs depending on the source. So, from Ostashko’s post we can conclude that we are talking about four American and at least one British ship. However, on Channel One, where the TV presenter works, before showing the viral video, the news anchor said: “The Houthis attacked four ships, including an American destroyer and a British frigate.” In some posts with the video, the British fleet don't mention They even claim that all four damaged ships were American.

Similar posts were posted by Telegram channels “Freshness"(180,000), "Uncle Slava"(178,000), "Release the Kraken!" (176,000), "Polite people 🅉 SVO"(145,000), "On March Z"(136,000), "Bullet"(122,000), "Operation Z"(99,000), "Mardan"(94,000), "Z-News | Army 🅉 18+"(92,000), Brief (73,000), etc. The viral video is also found in public pages in “VKontakte"(examples here, here And here), V "Odnoklassniki" and on the social network X, where some tweets were typed tens And hundreds thousands of views (including on foreign languages).

In November 2023, the Iran-backed Houthis statedthat they will attack all ships passing near the coast of Yemen that are in one way or another connected with Israel. Their actions grouping called a response to “American-Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip,” as militants described the Israeli operation launched after an attack by Hamas militants in October. Military and civilian ships from around the world were attacked by the Houthis. In mid-December the Pentagon announced on the start of an international operation to ensure the safety of navigation in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The American destroyer USS Labone mentioned in the above publications does not exist. Apparently, the authors of these messages meant USS Laboon and copied each other's misspelled names. 

On the morning of February 7, US Central Command reportedthat Yemeni militants have carried out a series of attacks in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The report stated that on February 6, from approximately 01:45 to 16:30 Moscow time, six anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) were fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

Three FCBs attempted to hit the MV Star Nasia, a Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier sailing through the Gulf of Aden. At approximately 3:20 a.m., the Star Nasia reported an explosion near the vessel, causing minor damage but no injuries. At 14:00, another rocket fell into the water next to the ship, causing no damage. At 16:30, USS Laboon (DDG 58), operating near Star Nasia, intercepted and shot down a third ACB launched by the Iranian-backed Houthis. The MV Star Nasia is at sea and continues to its destination.

The three remaining missiles were likely aimed at the MV Morning Tide, a British-owned Barbados-flagged cargo ship operating in the southern Red Sea. Three missiles fell into the water next to the ship without having any effect. Morning Tide continues on its way and reports no casualties or damage.

As for the British ship mentioned in the posts, HMS Diamond exists, but this is not a frigate, but also a destroyer. February 6 Royal Navy And Ministry of Defense Great Britain was informed that the frigate HMS Richmond will take over the mission to protect merchant shipping in the Red Sea in place of HMS Diamond, which "spent more than six weeks in danger, having repelled three drone attacks by the Houthis.” To be confirmedthat the destroyer "successfully destroyed nine drones" and the ship will now "go through a period of maintenance and resupply."

However, in the viral video, where you can see the outlines of at least five ships, despite the poor quality, direct missile hits on the hull are visible, and smoking ships are also visible.

On the supposed recording of a naval battle turned Attention fact checkers from the Info verif project of the French radio station RFI. They contacted a military expert, according to whom, in the video, the consequences of the explosions occur too late after the missile hit. In this case, the impacts do not cause fire, but are represented by a very short flash of light with the same sound in the background. In addition, all the ships are stationary and located very close to each other, which does not correspond to the tactics used in this type of combat.

French fact checkers have established that in fact the viral video is not a recording of real events, but a video from a computer game. By searching keywords and the names of several games, they found the original high-quality recording on YouTube. It lasts over 25 minutes and was published January 14, 2024 - a few weeks before the Houthi attack from the US military command summary. Video titled “Iran's Instant Reaction! Houthi cruise missile sinks American aircraft carrier near Yemen” has received almost 1 million views, and its description contains a disclaimer: “Not real footage, just Arma 3 gameplay.” The USMC account that published the video (@Arma3USMC) is engaged in the creation of realistic game simulations of combat operations. The profile description states that "this channel was created using content Bohemia Interactive» - developer of the Arma series of games.

The viral clip passed off as real footage corresponds to a fragment of the original video from the timestamp 10:58 By 11:22.

This is not the first time that footage from the game Arma 3 has been passed off as filming real combat. For example, back in February 2022, Internet users distributed a video that supposedly showed a battle between Russian fighters and Ukrainian air defense systems. It turned out, that the video was originally published on the YouTube channel Compared Comparison, whose author creates simulations using Arma 3 and Digital Combat Simulator.

Cover photo: USMC video screenshot

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. "BBC Russian Service". Who are the Yemeni Houthis and why are they attacking merchant ships?
2. Associated Press. Attacks on in ships the Red Sea are disrupting global trade. Here’s how it could affect what you buy