Social media has become an integral part of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Social media platforms are not only used to provide updates on conflicts, but also to spread misinformation in the form of deepfake videos.
The latest deepfake video related to the conflict shows Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring peace with Ukraine. This video was uploaded on Twitter by @sternenko and has been flagged as manipulated media.
"President of the Russian Federation announces Russia has surrendered. Russian soldiers, lower your weapons and go home while you are still alive," wrote @sternenko in his tweet, as quoted by Reuters, Saturday (19/3/2022). In a subsequent tweet, @sternenko said that the video was actually fake.
According to a fact-checking team from Reuters, the clip of the video was taken from Putin's speech on February 21 before Russian troops invaded Ukraine, but the original audio was replaced with new audio. Reuters managed to perform a reverse search of the keyframe in the fake video and found the original clip on the official presidential website.
Fact checkers found similarities between the original and fake videos as they both show Putin's hand gestures. His hands on the table and his head tilted slightly can be seen in both videos at the same time.
In the video, Putin can be seen saying, "We managed to achieve peace with Ukraine", before announcing that he will return Crimea to independence as part of Ukraine.
That statement is certainly not true, because as of March 19, Putin had not declared peace with Ukraine. A Russian speaker also confirmed that the audio in the clip doesn't sound like Putin's and that his lip movements are out of sync with his speech.
This is not the first deepfake to spread on the internet after Russia began its offensive in Ukraine. Recently, a deepfake video showed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitting to surrendering to Russia.
The quality of the deepfake video is so bad that it is easily recognized as a manipulated video. It wasn't long before the video was immediately removed from social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
After the deepfake video went viral, Zelensky immediately gave a clarification via Instagram. "As for the latest childish provocations with calls to lay down arms, I only call on the troops of the Russian Federation to lay down their weapons and go home. We are here and will defend Ukraine," Zelensky said.