Moussa is said to be a strong supporter of President Vladimir Putin and Russia in general and was speaking on his show about the controversy over that country’s bombardment of Islamic State fighters in Syria. He accused the U.S. of merely “playing,” while Russia was doing the job of fighting the infamous terrorist group.
The footage, included in the video uploaded by Marsad Talkshow below, is actually thought to be around five years old and looks fairly realistic, allegedly showing Russian fighters attacking ISIL from the air over Syria. However, the fact that the footage has words in English in an audio overlay to the “attack” including the word “Smoking!” should have alerted Moussa to what it actually was.
Moussa was then left red-faced on Egyptian national television after he played back the footage on the Sada el Balad channel on October 11. It seems it took only a short time before viewers recognized the footage for what it was.
In his report, Moussa said, “Let me tell you about Russia.”
“Russia does not play around. America was just playing, it wasn’t trying to hit Daesh [Islamic State].”
“The Russians did it. Yes, this is the Russian army, this is Russian weaponry, this is Putin. Yes, they are countering terrorism, truly countering it.”
He then went on to air what he dubbed the “terrifying video” footage, which is believed to be a clip from the video game Apache Air Assault. Watch the footage below:
According to the Washington Post, Moussa has had several fact-checking issues in the past, so this is nothing new. He was earlier in the year sentenced to two years in prison and a fine over a libel case, which was subsequently overturned.
According to the Mirror Online, while many may agree with his sentiments over the Russian attacks, Twitter naturally went wild with various funny jokes and memes about his blunder.
No doubt there will be many more such memes in the days to come.
