Does this video show the movement of Belarusian troops toward Rostov-on-Don, Russia, where Russian Wagner group members staged a rebellion on June 23? No, that's not true: the video shows part of a Belarus military parade in Minsk in May 2020 and Belarusian forces did not move into Russia during the recent rebellion.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by michalokr20 on June 24, with a caption reading:
Urgent! Belarusian troops are pulling into the Rostov-on-Don! The conflict in Russia escalates
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jul 4 12:10:27 2023 UTC)
The video does not show Belarusian forces moving into Russia. One of the buildings shown in the video is in Minsk. It features a well-known mosaic panel created by artist Alexander Kishchenko in the 1970's which adorns the facade of an apartment building on Independence Prospect in Minsk.
The user of this TikTok account published the same video several times with different claims. One of them, posted on March 19, said "Urgent! Convoy of military equipment is heading to the Ukrainian border," and it received 13.2 million views at the time of writing. According to Google and YouTube searches, the video used could have been taken on May 8, 2020 in Minsk during the rehearsal for the parade dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
Moreover, Belarusian forces were never ordered to move into Russia, where the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization rebelled against the Russian government on June 23, 2023 in Rostov-on-Don. In a video published on June 27 in the Telegram channel "Pool One", associated with the press service of the President of Belarus, the Belarusian leader stated (translated from Russian by Lead Stories staff):
The army within half a day, all armed forces - not only the military but also the police and special units - were put on high alert. An entire brigade was ready to be deployed to the Russian Federation if necessary.
