Thailand-Cambodia Clashes: Viral Visuals Claiming To Show Attacks Are Old And Unrelated

A couple of videos and an image have been going viral claiming to be from the ongoing clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, which has reportedly killed at least 16 people and displaced tens of thousands.

While one of the videos purportedly shows Cambodia firing rockets at Thailand’s Sisaket province, the other claims to show two Cambodian military posts destroyed by Thailand’s airstrikes. 

The viral image claims to show a Thailand F-16 fighter jet downed by Cambodia. The archived versions of the posts can be seen here, here and here, which have clocked close to 835K views together so far.

Why Are Cambodia And Thailand Fighting?

A long-running border conflict, rooted in a century-old dispute over the 11th-century Preah Vihear Hindu temple and the surrounding land, escalated dramatically on July 24, 2025, with Thailand launching airstrikes on Cambodian military targets and accusing Cambodia of firing rockets and artillery. Thailand and Cambodia have accused each other of opening fire first as the dispute over the border, which stretches across more than 817km, has repeatedly erupted over the years, fanned by nationalist sentiment.

Fact Check

Video 1

Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes of the 31-second video, which led us to this Instagram post, dated June 7, 2025, over a month before the recent flare-up of tensions between Thailand and Cambodia on Thursday (July 24), with the hashtag #Russia-Ukraine conflict.  

A similar X post by Italy-based media outlet L’Indipendente, dated June 7, 2025, stated that it was a Russian attack on Ukraine.

A further search led us to this X post by Al Jazeera Balkans, dated June 6, 2025, stated that the footage, recorded during the early morning hours by a resident, was of Russian missile attacks on the Ukrainian city of Lutsk. We also came across this UK-based Times News report on Youtube, dated June 6, 2025, which further confirmed that the video showed Russian missiles hitting the city of Lutsk in western Ukraine on Friday (June 6, 2025).

Video 2

Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes of the 12-second video, which led us to this TikTok post, dated October 22, 2022, well before the ongoing conflict. The post had Ukrainian hashtags reading, #artillery, #war, #donbas, likely indicating that it was from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict that began in February 2022.

Similar posts sharing the video from November 2022 can be seen here and here, with one saying in Russian, “Ukrainian Armed Forces surround Russian troops in Kremennaya from the north”. Although we could not yet independently ascertain the location of the video, we can confirm that it is not related to the latest round of clashes that erupted between Thailand and Cambodia since July 24, 2025.

Image 3

Newschecker ran a reverse image search, which led us to this RBC-Ukraine report, dated March 18, 2018, sharing the same photo. According to the caption, the photo shows a downed Su-24 bomber over Syria.  

A similar report can be seen here.

We then came across this July 21, 2016 Uzbek media report, sharing the same photograph, stating that a Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down in Syria. A further search led us to a November 24, 2015 Russian media report, stating that it shows a Russian Su-24 plane shot down over Syria, which confirmed that the viral photo was at least nine years old and is not related to the Thailand-Cambodia conflict that majorly escalated from July 24, 2025.

Conclusion

Old and unrelated visuals falsely shared as footage from ongoing Thailand-Cambodia clashes.

Sources
X post, Al Jazeera Balkans, June 6, 2025
Tiktok post, October 22, 2022
Rusarminfo report, November 24, 2015