Fact Check: Kyiv streets had water sprinklers for years, even before Russia-Ukraine war began

Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country has been questioned time and again. This seems to be the core concern of a video, supposedly from the streets of Kyiv, that’s been making rounds on social media.

This video shows water being sprayed from a pipe like a mist and pedestrians enjoying the sprinklers while cooling themselves. While sharing this video, people questioned the source of the funds for such an expenditure.

"Kyiv has a fancy new mister system throughout the city! I wonder who paid for that," said a tweet that contained this video.

Another tweet said, "This is Kyiv with a new mister system throughout the city. At the same time, that's in middle of a war zone." The archived version of such a post can be seen here.

India Today found this mist cooling system in Kyiv has existed for years and predates Russia’s invasion.

Our Probe

Upon reverse-searching keyframes from the viral video, the results led us to an Instagram image from August 12, 2019, that captured similar-looking water sprinklers on a footpath. Although the post did not carry any details about the photograph, the location was listed as Khreshchatyk, the main street of Kyiv, Ukraine.

Subsequent searches with this keyword led us to a website where an image of the same cooling system appeared on September 25, 2019. The caption of this photograph said, "New structures appeared on Khreshchatyk Street that spray water and are designed to cool pedestrians and water flowers at the same time. Summer." We also found news reports from August 2019 and 2020 that featured images of Kyiv's water sprinklers.

The 2019 report contained a photo gallery of what summers looked like in different parts of the world. The 2020 report was on the outbreak of Covid-19, where the photo was captioned, "People walk through a water sprinkler on a hot summer day in central Kyiv, Ukraine August 21, 2020."

A vlog video from July 2021, months before the Russian invasion, shows how these sprinklers helped keep the footpath comfortable for pedestrians in the middle of the summer heat.

With the help of an advanced keyword search, we came across a Russian news report from August 2017. It contained a picture of a water dispenser cooling frame installed in a Kyiv park.

These misters or sprinklers appeared to be functional even after the invasion. Photos of them in the stock photo website Getty Images shot on June 21 this year make that clear.

So, while we could not determine when the viral video was shot, it is evident that this mist cooling system was not installed during this ongoing conflict.