Russia's Defense Ministry cited videogame footage as ‘irrefutable evidence’ of U.S.-ISIS collaboration

Update: Russia's Defense Ministry blames a ‘civilian employee’ for tweeting a videogame screenshot, and publishes more ‘irrefutable evidence’ that America is helping ISIS

On November 14, the Russian Defense Ministry’s Twitter account published (and later deleted) “irrefutable evidence that U.S. is actually covering ISIS combat units to recover their combat capabilities, redeploy, and use them to promote American interests in Middle East,” sharing several black-and-white photos. Moscow claims the images were recorded on November 9 near the city of Abu Kamal in Syria.

The research group Conflict Intelligent Team (CIT) has pointed out, however, that one of the photos published by Russia’s Defense Ministry is actually a screenshot from the mobile videogame “AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.”

Another image Moscow shared allegedly showing U.S.-ISIS cooperation was actually recorded by the Iraqi Defense Ministry in June 2016 and shows the Iraqi Airforce bombing ISIS near Fallujah, says CIT.