Not sure if the footage is of Russian ships destroying Japanese merchant ships, actual combat with Japanese navy, target practice with empty ships (don't see any survivors in the close-up footage), or even World War One footage. Some of is routine sailing, practice firing, and drills spliced with the combat. The film's quality looks quite authentic for the period, so I don't think it is from staged for a film and it doesn't look like model ships are used. Some of the scenes looks like they use later film stock at around 3:25-3:32 and a few other places which is suspicious. Do any Russian Liveleakers especially know of the context of this video? Whatever the case its still pretty damn impressive look at early modern navies and could be the first combat footage ever captured.