This military convoy through Austria was not on its way to Ukraine
“It’s all shipped across Austria for the damn Ukraine,” says a man with an Austrian dialect in a video. From his car, he films a column of trucks on which tanks have been loaded. After more than two minutes, he ended the video with the words: “NATO must be liquidated. It is not normal that we tolerate these transports through Austria”. The video lands on telegramthere it was viewed over 10,000 times within a few days.
But the military vehicles are not on their way to Ukraine. According to a spokesman for the Austrian Armed Forces, they belong to a French NATO unit that is on its way to an exercise in Hungary.
Military convoy actually goes through Austria, but not to Ukraine
Similar videos appears several times around October 21st. In some it is only hinted that the destination of the convoy is Ukraine, for example in one Facebookpost that says: “Everyone can make up their own mind who the tanks and gadgets are for.“
The videos were actually recorded in Austria. This can be seen from the street signs, among other things. One is the center of Linz, the other is Hochstrass in Lower Austria. In the video on Telegram, which talks about “damn Ukraine”, an Austrian radio station is tuned in to the car and an Austrian motorway vignette is stuck to the windshield.
The license plates of the military vehicles are not clearly recognizable on any of the videos. But an orange sign with the inscription “Convoi Exceptionnel” appears on all of them. Such signs must be in accordance with French Right carry all vehicles in an “extraordinary convoy”.
Armed Forces spokesman confirmed: French NATO transport on the way to Hungary
That suits several Austrian media reports, which came out on October 21st. It reports on a convoy of French NATO military vehicles that were crossing the country on their way to Hungary. In a telephone call, a spokesman for the Austrian Armed Forces confirmed to us that the three videos show exactly this transport.
He says the convoy crossed the border in Suben and then took the west autobahn to Nickelsdorf in the direction of Hungary – Linz and Hochstrass are also on this route. Transports like this are not uncommon, says the spokesman, and there have also been US, Italian and German armed forces recently.
The news agency APA fact-checked videos of the same convoy and other footage of tanks in Vienna. According to the APA, they did not belong to foreign armed forces, but were on their way to the federal army’s performance show on the national holiday on October 26th.
You can find an overview of all our fact checks on the war in Ukraine here.
Editing: Matthias Bau, Steffen Kutzner
The most important public sources for this fact check:
- article of today from October 21, 2022: shortcut
- article of Upper Austrian news from October 23, 2022: shortcut
- fact check the APA from October 25, 2022: shortcut