Propaganda resources began publishing reports about the “shooting down” of a Ukrainian Air Force helicopter in the area of the temporarily occupied Lyman without evidence. They say that the “first shots” of the Russian military’s successful testing of the Mi-8 helicopter of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have appeared. However, this is fake.

Researchers at the StopFake project debunked this case using Google's reverse image search tool. As it turned out, the information provided is not true. These “first shots” only show a helicopter burning in the sky. They have nothing to do with the allegedly downed Ukrainian helicopter. An identical photograph has been used by various media outlets for several years. The oldest publications found by the search engine date back to 2020.

We also managed to find a video from which Russian propaganda took its “proof” of the alleged destruction of Ukrainian equipment. The British TV channel SkyNews published a video back in February 2020 with the same footage, but with a completely different caption. According to their journalists, it shows a Syrian military helicopter shot down by rebels. One can understand that this is the right helicopter from the same ignition of the fuselage (the place where fuel, landing gear, engines can be placed) of the aircraft and the color of the sky.

Previously, we also documented a similar hoax about the Russians “massively destroying” M1 Abrams tanks, although they had not even been delivered to Ukraine at that time. We also denied information that the Russians destroyed the first Leopard tank on the battlefield. This also turned out to be untrue.