Video shows Russian pilgrimage instead of Israeli evacuation to strike Iran
Israel’s June 13, 2025 attack on Iran sparked retaliation measures by Iran and turned decades of hostility between the two into a swift and exciting military conflict. Ethiopia’s video compilation circulating on Facebook claims that Israelis fled the city after Iran issued a warning. But this is wrong: the video shows footage of a religious pilgrimage to the Russian Velikoretsky held earlier this month, and mass gathering of drug fungi on the mountains of Nepal.
The text attached to the Amharah video post reads: “Israels leave the city because Iran warned to evacuate the city.”
Screenshot of fake post, taken on June 19, 2025
“Happy Travel,” English text overlayed with an emoji of the flag of Israel.
The 29-second video consists of three clips, divided into two parts.
On the upper half of the screen, hundreds of people are seen walking through hilly, dry landscapes.
In the lower half of the screen, a group of people were shown walking on the street, all heading in the same direction, most wearing large backpacks. Then, from above, I saw the crowd of people passing through a bridge.
The video was released on June 17, 2025 and has been shared more than 190 times since.
Similar posts were posted on Facebook and shared over 5,000 times.
Israel-Iran conflict
After decades of blood and a long war of shadows, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign on June 13, 2025, with Iran responding with a missile and drone.
AFP reported that as of June 19, 2025, more than 200 Iranians and Israelis were killed and hundreds were injured in missile attacks on both sides (archived here).
A hospital in southern Israel was attacked when Iran fired its ammunition, and Israeli troops said Iran attacked “inactive nuclear reactors” in Iran’s Arak.
International media also reported that on June 15, 2025, Iranian forces warned Israelis to leave their country in the face of an increase in rocket attacks (archived here).
However, the video does not show the Israelis fleeing the city.
Velikoretsky pilgrimage
AFP fact-check uses video verification tool Invid-weverify to perform keyframes from video for reverse image search.
For footage of crowds walking on the streets and on bridges, search results include X posts from June 6, 2025 (archived here).
The video accompanied by Russian text shows that it shows thousands of Russians taking part in the Velikoretsky religious pilgrimage earlier this month.
Velikoretsky is a Russian Orthodox parade held every year in early June, covering an area of 110 miles (177 km) and passing through 12 locations in the Kirov region (archived here).
The official website of the city of Kirov has a story about the pilgrimage that took place earlier on June 3, 2025, which includes pictures corresponding to the video (archived here).
Screenshot of images of Kirov website (left) and fake posts, taken on June 18, 2025
Meanwhile, search results edited by people walking on the hills show that it was originally released on June 2, 2025, more than a week before the Israeli-Iran conflict began.
The clip shows a group of people searching for a medical fungus called Yarsagumba near Dorpa Mountain in western Nepal.
Every year, people go to the highlands of Dolpa to harvest Yarsagumba, a rare and highly valued fungus (archived here).
All three clips are related to Israel or ongoing conflict with Iran.
