Did an aircraft with Wagner mercenaries onboard land in Niger's capital Niamey? No, that's not true: The footage presented in the claim shows a plane approaching Khartoum airport in Sudan in 2005.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) where it was published by vasia1326 on August 5, 2023. The same claim can be found here. The text on the video (translated from Russian to English by Lead Stories staff) reads:
"Wagner" has arrived in Niger 5.08.2023. 🇷🇺🇳🇪 IL-76 arrived in Niger's capital, the city of Niamey
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 9 08:07:14 2023 UTC)
The original video posted on YouTube shows an IL-76 crash landing on February 3, 2005. The cargo plane, which belonged to a private Sudanese company called Air West, crashed outside Khartoum.
Niger's military junta asked Wagner for help, but no official statement has been made by the Wagner group yet.
