By Micaela Burrow
Daily Caller News Foundation
The U.S. Navy posted, then deleted, a celebratory Independence Day image featuring Russian aircraft and a warship against an American flag background on Twitter, becoming the subject of mockery from social media users.
The image showed the silhouette of a saluting soldier in the foreground and the words “Happy 4th Of July,” while a silhouetted warship loomed in the background and five fighter jets flew in V-formation toward the top edge of the graphic, imposed over a faint rendering of a waving U.S. flag. Blake Herzinger, a defense researcher at the University of Sydney and a Navy Reserve officer, spotted the error and gave accolades to those of his followers who correctly identified the Russian assets featured in the photo.
“US Pacific Fleet Don’t Post Russian Ships and Aircraft on Independence Day Challenge 2023: Failed,” he wrote, captioning a screenshot of the image.
https://twitter.com/BDHerzinger/status/1676219388004016140
By 9 a.m. on July 4, the image had been viewed more than 13,000 times, according to the screenshot Herzinger shared.
Herzinger explained the warship resembled a a Kashin-class DDG, a Soviet-era guided missile destroyer that is no longer in service in Russia but can still be found among the Indian navy’s fleet. The aircraft appeared to be the Soviet-origin Sukhoi Su-27 fourth-generation fighters.
The Su-27, nicknamed the “Flanker,” currently serves the Ukrainian air force to intercept and deter Russian-operated Su-27s and other fighter jets, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
By Tuesday evening, dozens of Twitter users had commented on Herzinger’s post mocking the flub. However, others noted that public affairs troops of all the military service branches as well as those of other countries, including Russia, often make similar mistakes.
City officials and politicians have also shared images of Russian weapons while intending to promote the U.S. military, according to Task and Purpose, which first reported the incident.
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Pacific Fleet deleted the tweet and posted a new graphic in its stead depicting a U.S. aircraft carrier and submarine, with the caption: “Land of the free; home of the brave.”
Pacific Fleet did not respond to requests for comment from Task and Purpose. The U.S. Navy did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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