Deepfake Zelenskyy Video Quickly Identified Taken Down By Social Media

A recent video showing a deepfake recreation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been quickly identified and removed from social media. The video showed the Ukrainian President urging Ukrainians to lay down their arms — a far cry from the strong message he has projected to his countrymen up to this point in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Though the raw video has been removed, edits clarifying it is a deepfake still exist online.

A deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on his soldiers to lay down their weapons was reportedly uploaded to a hacked Ukrainian news website today, per @Shayan86 pic.twitter.com/tXLrYECGY4

— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) March 16, 2022

Yesterday, the Ukrainian television channel Ukraine 24 was hacked, and hackers caused a fake message from Zelenskyy urging surrender to run across the channel's crawl text. The video appeared briefly on their website.

The broadcast of the TV channel Ukraine-24 was hacked, and a fake appeal by Zelenskyy to lay down arms to the military appeared on the running line below pic.twitter.com/TdhLKOP81R

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 16, 2022

Shortly after the message aired, the real Zelenskyy posted a video denying the fake and urging Russian soldiers to lay down their arms. "We are defending our land, our children, our families. So we don't plan to lay down any arms. Until our victory," he said.

The President of #Ukraine immediately denied this fake. pic.twitter.com/Uhrwu2ZVzK

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 16, 2022

It appears most viewers were able to quickly identify that the video showed a deepfake of Zelenskyy, as the footage makes Zelenskyy's head disproportionate to his body and the voice doesn't match the Ukrainian President, who's been highly televised in recent weeks around the world.

Nevertheless, it is a troubling sign of potentially more 21st-century war propaganda to come. Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told NPR that he suspects the video is the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to manipulated video footage. As for now, Ukraine and its supporters can be thankful that deepfake technology isn't all that convincing just yet.