Were Russian soldiers deployed near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on February 24, 2024? No, that's not true: The video shot in Kharkiv was taken in the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by optimistka26 (archived here) on February 24, 2024. The text overlay of the video (translated from Russian to English by Lead Stories staff) read:
🇺🇦'Hello, Dimon. Russian army 🇷🇺💪 is in Kharkiv!' 🇺🇦 'Why did you chicken out!?😂 24.02.2024
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Feb 27 05:58:01 2024 UTC)
A reverse image search on Google Lens using clips of the video by Lead Stories on February 26, 2024, revealed a match with the video posted on X (formerly Twitter) on February 24, 2022 (archived here). The description of the video reads: "Footage of Russian forces in the outskirts of Kharkov city. Looks like Ukrainian civilians are stuck there."
Russian troops were withdrawn from the Kharkiv region in September 2022, months after the invasion began (archived here) "to achieve the declared objectives of the special military operation to liberate the Donbass," according to the Russian authorities.
