Pro-Russian sources are distributing a video in which a priest of the Greek Catholic Cathedral in Ivano-Frankivsk allegedly says during a liturgy that Donald Trump is “the Antichrist, the devil” and “with his arrival the end of the world will come”. Therefore, on the eve of the presidential elections, the priest allegedly called on believers to pray for the “prudence of the American people”.

However, the video distributed by Russian propagandists is a deepfake. This was reported on the official media resource of the Ivano-Frankivsk Archeparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. For the deepfake, the fakers used the image and voice of Father Stepan Balahura, the syncellus for clergy and priestly families of the Ivano-Frankivsk Archeparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. 

The basis for the deepfake was a broadcast of the liturgy from the Archcathedral on November 5, 2024, posted on the YouTube platform in open access. During the service, the priest did not talk about Trump and certainly did not call him the “antichrist” and “devil”.

This disinformation is an attempt by propagandists to influence Ukrainians' perception of Donald Trump, who has already been re-elected as US President. We previously analyzed the Russian fake that Ukrainian Greek Catholics were exempted from mobilization.