Claim: A video shows an attack by Iran on Israel’s nuclear power plant amid the current Iran war.
Fact: The video is old and appeared online in March 2017, with online publications linking it to an explosion at an arms depot in Ukraine.
On 3 March, a Facebook user posted a video apparently showing an attack on Israel’s nuclear power plant.
A screenshot of the Facebook post making a claim that the video showed Israel’s nuclear facility destroyed by Iranian missiles.
It also appeared on Facebook here and here.
On 2 March, an X user also posted the same video and claimed “BIG BREAKING: Iran’s devastating attack on Israel’s nuclear reactor facilities with Al-Fath and Khyber missiles! Israeli nuclear power plants destroyed by Iranian missiles!”
This article only fact-checks the video circulating online.
US-Israel war with Iran
The US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, targeting multiple sites on 28 February 2026. The strikes killed former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other Iranian officials and military figures. Mojtaba Khamenei replaced his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Iran’s supreme leader.
In response, Iran launched multiple strikes on Israel and Gulf states, including Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait and others, some of which host US bases in the region. Since the war began, Iran also closed the Strait of Hormuz — an important maritime passageway through which approximately 20% of the world’s oil supply transits — disrupting the global oil supply. Oil prices have soared since the closure of the passageway.
At least 1,568 people have been killed in Iran as of 29 March, including approximately 236 children, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Notably, a strike on a girl’s school in Minab, Iran, killed 168 people, most of them children, on 28 February.
Growing evidence and investigations by Bellingcat, CNN, The New York Times suggest that the US is responsible for targeting an area where an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base is located, adjacent to a girl’s school in Minab, Iran. A video released on 8 March by the Mehr News Agency — reviewed by the aforementioned news organisations — revealed that the school was probably hit some time before the IRGC facility. The clip shows smoke already rising from the school before a US Tomahawk missile struck the IRGC facility.
At least 13 US service members have also been killed.
According to the BBC: “As of 29 March, Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service (MDA) said 19 people had been killed by [Iranian] missile fire since the start of the war.”
Fact or Fiction?
When the X post began circulating online, Tal Hagin, an Information Warfare Analyst and Media Literacy Lecturer, debunked the clip and said it was not from Israel.
“This isn’t from Israel, nor is it recent.
The video is from 2017 – Per reports at the time it showcases an ammunition depot explosion in Ukraine,” he wrote on X and shared a screenshot along with a link to the original video on YouTube.
Soch Fact Check reviewed the footage in question, titled [roughly translated via Google Translate from Russian], “Achinsk, the moment of detonation, evacuation of people”, posted on 23 March 2017. The scenes at 2:12, for instance, match the clip being fact-checked, confirming it is unrelated to the ongoing war. A comparison of the matching keyframe is shown below:
Left: video circulating online amid the war. Right: Clip from March 2017 depicting the same scenes as on the left.
The caption further stated a fire and an explosion took place at an arms depot in Balakleya, Ukraine at the time.
Approximately 20,000 people were being evacuated from the area when explosions happened at the depot, according to the BBC.
A digital news publication Task and Purpose also shared the above YouTube clip in its article, titled “This Video Of A Weapons Dump Exploding In Ukraine Is Insane”, published on 24 March 2017.
Further reverse-searches yielded another video report that depicts the same incident in March 2017. Global News, a Canadian news network, posted a video, titled “Ukraine military clears ammo warehouse in east after deadly blast”, on 24 March 2017. Initial scenes here match the clip circulating online, another confirmation that the clip is old.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, rates the claim as false.
Virality
The video was shared on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram here, here, here, here, and here.
It appeared on X here.
Conclusion: The video is not connected to the Iran war. It appeared online in March 2017, with online publications linking it to an explosion at an arms depot in Ukraine.
Background image in cover photo: France 24
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com