This photo collage got 22K likes on #Instagram: it shows a swimming pool 🏊 in #Kharkiv 🇺🇦 before and after Russian shelling 🇷🇺.
"Is this supposed to be the same place before and after?" 🤔
Let's find oud! 🧵👇 1/...
#OSINT 🔎
#Verification 📸
#GeoLocation 🌍
#HowToOSINT 🧐
We upload the image in Yandex. That search engine suggests that we are indeed seeing a swimming pool in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv 🟥.
Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine, close to the Russian border and has been under attack since the beginning of the war. 2/...
On a Ukrainian website with info about swimming pools in Kharkiv, we found the same photo. ✅
We also find an address: Alchevskyh Street 50 A. We search for that address on Google Maps and indeed we end up at the sports complex of the Polytechnic Institute. 🗺️ 3/...
On Maps we can find several pictures of the inside of the complex (left).
We can see a swimming pool 🏊♀️ and a multipurpose hall 🏀🤼.
It seems to be the same swimming pool as in our collage (right) and the roof structure of the multipurpose hall also seems to match. 🤔4/...
We are looking for more footage of recent damage to sports infrastructure in Kharkiv. 🔎
That's how we ended up with this short clip on #YouTube: 5/...
We compare the bottom photo of the collage (left) with the video (right).
Visual elements match 🟥🟦🟨: we see the same place. ✅ 6/...
We also found a news report on Facebook, uploaded on 24 June.
Again, we compare this video (right) with the picture of the multipurpose hall we found on Google Maps (left).
Five 🏀 rings 🟥, the roof structure 🟩 and the wood-coloured wall 🟨 match. ➡️ Same place. 7/...
👆We can conclude that the sports complex of the Polytechnic Institute in Kharkiv was indeed damaged recently, moste likely by Russian missile attacks.
Is the swimming pool located on the same site? 👇8/...
We compare Google Streeview at the sports complex (right) with the swimming pool from the photo collage (left): the window structures match. ✅ 9/...
A few dozen metres further down the street on Google Streetview (right) we recognise the damaged building from the TV report on Facebook (left).
(Over and over, compare visual clues from multiple sources to understand the situation. 💯) 10/...
From the 👆 info and the visible architecture in both photos, we can deduce that these are two adjacent sports halls in the same complex.
We can see this clearly on an aerial photo on Google Maps (right). The damaged sports hall 🟧 is located next to the 🏊♀️ pool 🟦. 11/...
On 26 June, the governor of the #Kharkiv region published photos of the rocket impact on the sports complex on Telegram.
There is also one photo of the damage to the swimming pool 🟦.
We can see that there is damage, but the roof has not collapsed. 12/...
The local Kharkiv Times newspaper published an article on 24 June entitled 'Last night, Russian invaders almost destroyed the HPI sports complex': times.kharkiv.ua/ru/2022/06/24/…
In it we also find several photos of the swimming pool after the rocket impact. 📸 13/...
We only see damage on the north side of the swimming pool, where the swimming pool 🟦 is adjacent to the multipurpose sports hall 🟧.
➡️ The limited damage to the swimming pool is therefore a consequence of the rocket impacts on the multipurpose sports hall. 14/...
CONCLUSION: Yes, this sports complex in Kharkiv was heavily damaged, most likely after a recent Russian missile attack.
However, the photo collage shows two different sports halls, a more accurate comparison would look like this:
What have we learned? 👩🏫
1) Comparing visual clues from multiple sources helps you understand what happened. 👁️
2) Aerial images or drone footage are 🥇to understand architecture. 🚁
3) Before/after collages can be a strong visual tool, but be careful when you make one. ⚠️ 16/..
You can read my full article with all sources used here (@Knack) for FREE. 👇17/...
knack.be/factcheck/fact…
@Knack Did you learn something from this #OSINT for #FactChecking?
Follow me (@brechtcastel) and check out my channel on #YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCMBPt… 🙏
Older 🧵🧵underneath this tweet: 18/END
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