President Vladimir Putin’s “martial law declaration speech” broadcast in Russia’s border regions has been confirmed to be a fake video using Deepfake.
According to foreign media reports, including Bloomberg News, President Putin’s emergency speech was broadcast on TV and radio in Russia’s border regions on May 5먹튀검증 (local time). In the speech, Putin said that “Ukrainian forces invaded the Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions with the support of NATO,” imposing martial law and general mobilization, and instructing residents to “evacuate to the center of Russia”. In some areas, the video was accompanied by a deepfake video.
In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “President Putin has never made a public address of this nature,” calling it a “false broadcast following a hacking attack.” He did not provide details on the identity of the hackers or how the video was manipulated.
Bloomberg noted that the broadcast appeared to mimic Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. “The enemy will be defeated, victory is ours,” the Soviet leader said in a 4 a.m. radio address as the Germans launched their attack, and the fake speech ended with the same phrase. It also quoted directly from a July 3 speech by Iosif Stalin in which he referred to the Russian people as “brothers and sisters.”