“This is the first deepfake used in warfare, intentionally made to be deceptive,” Sam Gregory, director of Witness, a group of human rights activists , told Euronews .
“It’s not an effective deepfake, partly because it’s not extremely well done, but also because Ukraine has done masterful pre-bunking work to quickly disprove the content,” Gregory explained. Suffice it to say that earlier this month, Ukrainian ground forces had warned citizens to be aware of potential manipulated videos that could have shouted for surrender.
“The goal is to disorient, sow panic and incite our troops to withdraw. Rest assured: Ukraine will not capitulate,” the Kiev government said days ago.
“The only ones who should give up their weapons are Russian soldiers,” Zelensky stressed in the afternoon, responding to the news of the deepfake shortly before remotely intervening in the US Congress.
To spread the deepfake, hackers hired from Moscow hacked the transmissions of Ukrainian channels Ukraine 24 and Today, launching the “surrender” message. A trivial and somewhat clumsy attempt to try to bring a conflict to Putin’s side that is proving to be a major headache for the Kremlin.
In the photo, screen of the deepfake: it can be seen that Zelensky’s face has been copy-pasted and it is artificial