Russian sources are spreading information that the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty allegedly criticized the “language patrols” in Ukraine. As “proof” of this, propagandists publish a video in which O'Flaherty allegedly says that such patrols violate the rights of national minorities in Ukraine. 

However, the video distributed by the propagandists is fabricated - it was created using deepfake technology based on artificial intelligence. This is reported in the Stopfake project. At the 46th second of the distributed video, one can see how the man's “double chin” appears for a second and then immediately disappears. Also, the man in the video hardly blinks, and his speech does not match his facial expressions. In addition to this, the real Michael O'Flaherty has more active facial expressions when he speaks. One  can see this by watching any speech of the commissioner.

StopFake journalists also analyzed the propagandists’ videos using Attestiv, a tool for identifying fake videos created by artificial intelligence. The analysis showed that the video was “highly likely” to be fake.

This is not the first time that Russian propaganda has spread disinformation about “language patrols” in Ukraine, responding to the initiative of the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk to create such patrols in the city to popularize the Ukrainian language. At the same time, the “language inspectors” do not have any special powers; this is a volunteer initiative.

Earlier, we recorded disinformation that the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv opened recruitment for a team of “language inspectors”.