Deepfake Video Shows Ukrainian President Allegedly Surrendering

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A cobbled-together video supposedly showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s public capitulation following the Kremlin’s wishes has gone viral.

The video in question is not particularly convincing and was ridiculed on all sides on Wednesday. Still, experts warn that these poorly edited images could be the harbinger of far more sophisticated forms of manipulation.

The film in question shows Zelensky, who is speaking behind the presidential desk with an ashen-grey face and calling on his compatriots to lay down their arms in front of Russian invasion troops. It is not clear whether anyone was kicked in. However, Internet users immediately pointed to the colour differences of Zelensky’s scalp and neck, the strange accent in his voice and the pixels around his head.

Nina Schick, the author of Deepfakes, said the footage looks like an “absolutely horrible face swap,” referring to computer programs that can glue one person’s head to another’s torso. Nowadays, however, there are also techniques with which very realistic falsifications (deepfakes) can be made. As a result, Facebook said it would remove the video from the platform.