It had to be expected. A deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky surrendering to the Russians has circulated on the web. This demonstrates how disinformation has become a favored tool in times of war.
A deepfake broadcast by a news channel
This Wednesday, March 16, Ukraine 24, Ukrainian news channel, published a post in which it assures that its live broadcast and its website have been hacked. Shortly before, a very surprising video of President Zelensky was broadcast by the media, in which he declared in particular ” return the Donbass and calls on Ukrainians to surrender and find their families. He then announced that he was leaving his post at the head of the country.
Germany recommends its companies to abandon Russian software from Kaspersky
Soon after, Volodymyr Zelensky published a video on his Instagram account in which he completely denies the comments broadcast by Ukraine 24: As for the latest childish provocation with the advice to lay down arms, I only advise the troops of the Russian Federation to lay down their arms and go home. We are at home and we defend Ukraine “, did he declare.
For his part, Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security at Meta, published a tweet in which he states: Earlier today, our teams identified and removed a deepfake video purporting to show President Zelensky making a statement he never made. It appeared on an apparently compromised website and then started circulating on the internet “.
As a matter of principle, I never post or link to fake or false content. Goal @MikaelThalen has helpfully whacked a label on this Zelensky one, so here goes.
I’ve seen some well-made deepfakes. This, however, has to rank among the worst of all time.pic.twitter.com/6OTjGxT28a
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) March 16, 2022
Ukrainians expected it
The video released by the hackers was therefore a deepfake, a technique based on artificial intelligence to overlay existing video or audio files on other video or audio files. Concretely, this technology can make anyone say anything and it is for this reason that it makes some experts fear the worst.
Moreover, at the beginning of March, the Ukrainian government issued a warning addressed to soldiers and civilians, asking them to be wary of videos of their president posted on the Internet, in particular if the latter announces the lay down the arms of his people. In that statement, the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications said the Russian government would likely use deepfakes to convince Ukrainians to surrender: “ Videos made using these technologies are almost indistinguishable from real ones. Warning, it’s a fake! Its purpose is to confuse, sow panic, disbelieve the citizens and incite our troops to retreat “, could we read in the statement.
In the case of Zelensky’s deepfake, it was pretty easy to figure out that it wasn’t an actual video. Indeed, his head appears to have been glued to a still photo of his body, which is standing on a podium. While his face moves quite convincingly as he blinks, it moves unnaturally, while his voice is much deeper than his actual voice.
A preferred tool for disinformation
If this time, the deepfake was not realistic enough to deceive the population, this practice demonstrates the power of this technology, which was banned by Meta in 2020, just before the presidential elections in the United States.
This is not the first time that deepfakes have been talked about in Europe. In April 2021, several MEPs were the target of video calls with an interlocutor posing as Russian opponent Leonid Volkov. It is a very effective disinformation tool, and it is to be expected that it will be used more and more given the global geopolitical context.