Video appears online showing a Russian Victory Day prank at the White House in DC

“If Barack doesn’t go to Moscow[‘s] Victory Day Parade, the Parade will go to Barack!” With this declaration, a pro-Kremlin youth group allegedly projected footage of a Russian military parade onto the walls of the White House in Washington, DC, yesterday.

The prank was meant to be a response to the West’s refusal to attend this weekend’s Victory Day parade in Red Square, where Russia will mark the 70th anniversary of the USSR’s defeat of Nazi Germany. Those responsible for lighting up the north face of the White House blame the US president for “forbidding many world leaders” from coming to Moscow to witness the celebration.

So far, the only evidence that this stunt ever took place is the YouTube video itself. There are no local news reports about the incident, and Washington police have not indicated any security breaches. It's possible that the video is edited or entirely fake.

The group appears to have managed to broadcast about 40 seconds of images of Russian flags, tanks, other military equipment, accompanied by the Russian patriotic march, Farewell of Slavianka (though the music was likely added in post-production).

At the end of the YouTube clip, there is a link to a film festival run by a patriotic youth group created by the infamous pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi. The film festival’s jury includes Yuri Degtyaryov, the creator of the film studio My Duck’s Vision, which projected a similar patriotic video clip onto the exterior of the US embassy in Moscow last March. Degtyaryov has refused to comment on the incident at the White House.

According to reports, world leaders expected to attend Moscow’s May 9 Victory Day parade are coming from China, South Africa, India, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Serbia, Slovenia, and other countries. Representatives from UNESCO and the United Nations are also due to attend. 

Several Western nations have refused to come or ignored Moscow’s invitations. This includes the United States, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Latvia, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, France, Germany, and others. Belarus plans to hold its own Victory Day parade.