Moscow wasn’t ‘engulfed in flames’

Russian forces have seen heavy losses in Ukraine as they push forward with their invasion of the country, but Moscow isn’t experiencing similar firefight, as a recent Facebook post suggests. 

"GIANT EXPLOSION IN RUSSIA," the July 6 post says. "The capital Moscow was engulfed in flames. Military equipment factory was blown up."

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The video in the Facebook post mentions a fire at a factory in Odintsovo, a city about 20 miles outside of Moscow. 

The British tabloid the Daily Express said in a June 15 story that a "fire was raging and thick black clouds were billowing into the sky at a plant in Odintsovo." Ukrainian media reported that the building was a "paint and varnish plant," not a military equipment factory, according to the Express. 

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“NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says that ‘if Trump surrenders Ukraine to Putin, he will personally expel the United States from the alliance.’”

A week earlier, according to Euro Weekly News, another plant about 40 miles north of Moscow that produces Russian military equipment, was on fire. 

In April, The Washington Post reported that a series of unexplained fires and explosions in Russia raised suspicions that some may have been caused by sabotage or Ukrainian attacks. 

But the claim that Moscow was engulfed in flames is wrong. According to reports, there were two separate fires at factories in cities outside of Moscow. 

The post claiming that Moscow was "‘engulfed in flames" is wrong. We rate it False.