Russian Embassy Tweets 'Command & Conquer: Generals' Screenshot As Evidence Of Terrorist Threat

With video games becoming more and more realistic over time, various groups have started to use them in other forms of media to suit their own needs. ISIS did it with "Call of Duty" in its propaganda, and it looks like Russia is doing much of the same in a recent tweet from its embassy in the U.K.

Russia's defense ministry held a briefing on Wednesday, where it talked about how several trucks with chemical weapons had arrived in the rebel-held Syrian territory of Aleppo.

As a result, on the following day, the Russian embassy in London tweeted this:

. @mod_russia: Extremists near Aleppo received several truckloads of chemical ammo. pic.twitter.com/scCEMXRvwH

- Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) May 12, 2016

Contrary to what the tweet says, those aren't real extremists, those aren't real chemicals, and that isn't really Aleppo. What this tweet is actually showing is a screenshot from the PC real-time strategy game "Command & Conquer: Generals."

Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, has seen some of the fiercest fighting in an ongoing civil war. More than 26,000 have lost their lives in the city and its surrounding area since 2012.

"Command & Conquer:Generals," on the other hand, is an EA-published video game from 2003, which takes place in a near-future setting where the U.S. and China team up to combat a terrorist organisation known as the GLA.

Yes, the Russian Embassy was seemingly quite careless in tweeting a photo from a video game when trying to give evidence of a terrorist threat, but in its defense, it did so knowingly. Not only did the tweet include a caption saying "image used for illustration purposes only," but the image itself portrays the bomb truck, which is the first result that you get when you type the keywords "bomb truck" into Google Images. Interestingly, the bomb truck can be outfitted with chemical ammo to increase its potency, though its more than likely that the Russian Embassy wasn't aware of this.

At any rate, the Twitterverse quickly caught wind of the Russian Embassy's "blunder" and posted a series of humorous tweets, poking fun at the decision to use a screenshot from a video game, rather than one of an actual bomb-filled truck.

Tags

Russia, Aleppo, Terrorism