When the mayor of the Ukrainian city Kyiv told his counterpart in Berlin to send back Ukraininan refugees to be deployed as soldiers in the ongoing war on a video call, the Berlin mayor grew suspicious. On verification, the Berlin mayor was shocked to know that she has been interacting with the deep fake version of the Kyiv mayor.
Franziska Giffey, Berlin Mayor has reportedly interacted with Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Ukraine in a scheduled video call recently. During the call, the Kyiv mayor told Giffey about the problem of Ukrainian refugees cheating the German state of benefits, and appeared to call for refugees to be brought back to Ukraine for military service, Giffey grew suspicious, The Guardian reported.
The Berlin mayor's office immediately checked with Ukraine's Ambassador to Germany and was shocked to know that the person actually on the call was not the real Klitschko. The Guardian quoted her saying, “It is sadly the reality that the war is being waged with all sorts of means, including on the net, to undermine trust by digital means and discredit the partners and allies of Ukraine,” Giffey said.
The office of Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida has also filed a police complaint regarding someone impersonating Klitschko in a video call. The mayor's office was quoted saying that the mayor grew suspicious soon after the start of the conversation and interrupted the call.
Michael Ludwig, Mayor of Vienna had recently posted on social media about his interaction with Kyiv mayor. However, the post was deleted later. In an official statement posted on Twitter, the mayor's office said, “These developments are very questionable and extremely dangerous. There was no evidence that the conversation was not conducted with a real person and to question it. Nowadays it seems that conflicts are additionally fueled by digital warfare. The aim is to shake trust in politics and to discredit Ukraine and its supporters.”
They added, “We are currently investigating and will take action to counter this new form of cybercrime in the future. Postings related to the video conference will also be deleted immediately.”
Deepfake is defined as a video of a person in which their face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else, typically used maliciously or to spread false information. The Guardian reported in 2019, the AI firm Deeptrace found 15,000 'deepfake' videos online. Social media platform Facebook recently removed a 'deepfake' video of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which he was seen asking Ukrainians to lay down arms.
