Does the image of a train carrying tanks show the withdrawal of U.S. military aid to Ukraine or of U.S. troops from Poland? No, that's not true: The image is taken from footage of rail transport of army tanks that already appeared on YouTube in 2014 and has nothing to do with 2025 events. Furthermore, U.S. military aid to Ukraine resumed on March 11, 2025, after being suspended for over a week.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here), published on TikTok on March 9, 2025. It shows rail transport of military combat vehicles and has a text overlay in Czech that reads, translated by Lead Stories staff:
Trump pulls tanks out of Poland at the last minute
Aid to Ukraine has been cancelled.
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Mar 14 11:23:42 2025 UTC)
The image from the above video is part of footage uploaded to YouTube in 2014, which can be viewed here (archived here). It shows military tanks being transported on rails, and it is published with a Polish title that reads: "Wojsko na torach/Eszelon Zagan-Braniewo ET22-1117," translated by Lead Stories staff as "Military on the tracks." The video refers to a railway route between two towns in Poland: Zagan (archived here), in the Southwest of the country, and Braniewo (archived here), in Northeastern Poland, which also serves as a military base (archived here). The ET22 (archived here) is a type of electric locomotive used in Poland.
Between the 2:20 and the 2:50 marks, the same angle of the video shown in the TikTok post is also visible in the 2014 YouTube video:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Mon Mar 17 11:42:42 2025 UTC)
As the footage was uploaded to YouTube back in 2014, it cannot show the withdrawal of U.S. military support to Ukraine or U.S. troops from NATO's eastern flank during a temporary pause of the U.S. assistance (archived here) to the war-torn country, as claimed in the TikTok video. The pause followed a spat between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on February 28, 2025 (archived here).
The U.S. resumed military assistance (archived here) and intelligence sharing with Ukraine on March 11, 2025, following the talks in Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine agreed to a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire with Russia.
