The Bay of Ulysses in Vladivostok was filled with thick black smoke coming from the Russian Pacific Fleet docks on January 21. The Pacific Fleet’s press service released a statement the same day, which claimed that sailors were training how to extinguish a fire on the pier. While the official statement congratulated the sailors for their preparedness to act in extreme situations, civilian videos from the scene tell a different story. @DFRLab took a closer look to see what details were not mentioned in the official account.

Overview

The first videos of the incident appeared on YouTube as early as 8:11 UTC and were soon followed by VKontakte (VK or ВКонтакте) posts. Three videos of the accident appeared on YouTube and VK, which provided footage of the bay from three different angles. Thick black smoke and open flames were clearly visible in all of the videos and no clear signs of efforts to extinguish the fire were visible. At 10:40 UTC, Russian news agency TASS published the official statement of the incident, claiming that this was only a damage control exercise.

On the territory of the submarines of the Pacific Fleet (Bay of Ulysses), the personnel were trained to extinguish the fire on the pier, using imitations. The fire was extinguished in six minutes, the exercise took about 30 people. The personnel handled the situation outstandingly.

According to TASS, the local civilian fire brigades were not informed of this incident and were not present at the scene.

The three vantage points of civilian videos, which provided further information, are pinpointed below.