The weekly Voskresnoye Vremya program of Russia's state-run Channel One TV accidentally aired an "ARMA 3" footage to show military action in Syria during a report celebrating the Russian armed forces.
BBC reported that a user of Pikabu, Russia's Reddit equivalent, posted a photo still of the footage with the comment "Arma 3 on Channel One." The photo started a debate on whether the footage of the 2013 open world, realism based, military tactical shooter video game was added accidentally or intentionally. The gun-sight footage of a truck being attacked in "ARMA 3" was used to show military action in Syria during the program's Feb. 25 report in celebration of the Russian armed forces — commemorating the previous week's Defender of the Fatherland Day, praising those who put their duty and honor before their own lives.
CNN reported that Channel One acknowledged the mistake in its statement to Govorit Moskva, a talk radio station. Channel One made it clear that the mistake was an accident and was not made deliberately. Channel One said that the editing director of the program made a mistake after it accidentally used the video game footage from the video archive. As to how the program has a footage of "ARMA 3," Channel One said that the clip was used in a previous story concerning video games.
BBC said this was not the first time Russian media used video game footages to illustrate real-life scenarios. In November last year, Russian Defence Ministry posted photos which supposedly proved that the United States was giving aid to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It was revealed not long after, however, that the photos came from the 2015 promotional video for the smartphone game "AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron." Russian Defence Ministry acknowledged the mistake and said that an employee accidentally used the photos.
