Russian news accidentally uses video game scene in report on military action in Syria

Russia’s flagship news program has mistakenly used computer game footage in a report on the war in Syria.

Viewers of the weekly Voskresnoye Vremya show on state-run Channel One TV picked up the mistake, noting gun-sight footage of a truck being attacked was actually a scene from the Arma-3 computer game, the BBC reports.

The report was designed as a celebration of Russia’s armed forces to commemorate last week’s Defender of the Fatherland Day.

During the report, Roman Filippov, the pilot of a Su-25 ground attack aircraft who was killed in Syria at the beginning of the month, was honoured.

However during a sequence showing the jets in action, the game scene was used.

It was spotted by users of the social network Pikabu, Russia’s equivalent of Reddit, with a debate quickly starting as to whether use of the video game footage was purposeful or an accident.

Some users even suggested it was a deliberate ploy by a put-upon Channel One video editor, speculating that they were “forced to do this and are begging for help”.

However, Channel One claim it was a mistake “by the video editing director, who took it from the archive”.

The incident comes three months after the Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted video-game images as proof the US was aiding the Islamic State.