Turkey has once again been caught making fake news, this time after being embarrassed because they cannot find Greece's "hidden" submarines in the East Mediterranean.
On Tuesday afternoon, five Turkish CN-235 electronic warfare aircraft and two helicopters scanned from one end of the Aegean to the other in order to try and locate the “invisible hunters” of the Greek fleet, the powerful and state-of-the-art 214 submarines, but were unable to do so, as reported by Greek City Times.
However, it appears that Turkey has been so panicked by their incompetency's in finding Greek submarines that they are now resorting to fake news to show that they are capable of "finding" the invisible 214's.
Spread all across Turkish media, including Hürriyet who first released the video, but also on EHA News, Daily Sabah and TRT World, a comical video emerged of the Turkish military "finding" a Greek submarine.
The problem?
There are no indications that this is a Greek submarine at all, and assuming that it is a Greek submarine, it is clearly not trying to be "hidden" or "invisible" since it surfaced to periscope depth.
Of course social media lit up at the comical efforts by Turkey to try and cover the fact they are finding it difficult to locate Greek submarines hidden in the East Mediterranean.
On the more serious side, the popular Naval Analyses twitter account wrote "If an AIP submarine operates at periscope depth it wants to be seen. End of story."
Sources in the Greek military, speaking to Hellas Journal, assured that the video is fake, pointing out that this is classic Turkish propaganda as Ankara wants to boost low morale.
Days ago, Greek Minister of Defense Nikos Panagiotopoulos said when speaking about Greek submarines:
"They proved their worth as differentiating factors of superiority in the field during the recent crisis. Turkish forces are still trying to find them. Because of the special characteristics of propulsion, they have, if I may say so schematically, a silent system that cannot be detected by helicopters, planes or surface ships that are looking for them."
Turkey is one of the lowest ranked countries for media freedoms in the world, is the second most susceptible country surveyed on the European continent and its surrounds to fake news, has the most journalists jailed in the whole world, and 90% of media is government controlled.