Anonymous telegram channels broadcasting Kremlin rhetoric distributed a video with Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in which he allegedly calls for a coup. The authors of the publication claim that these are natural actions of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, because they are probably trying to remove him from office. It's a lie.

The VoxCheck analysts examined the video and found out that Valerii Zaluzhnyi did not make such statements, and the video was compiled using artificial intelligence technologies. According to a reverse Google search, propagandists used Zaluzhnyi’s address on the occasion of Armed Forces Day on December 6, 2023 to create a deepfake.

Also, the Kremlin is now instrumentalizing for its own needs the message about a likely change in the military leadership of Ukraine. After all, official communications from the state or a publication from the Ministry of Defense, several comments from officials and videos assured that this was not the case, in particular, Zaluzhnyi “was not fired”. And they also said that they would not “comment” on the stuffing of anonymous resources that they themselves legitimized. Now the Kremlin’s mouthpieces are circulating reports about the situation and demonstrating it as “undermining the Ukrainian agenda”. For example, Maryna Symonian, editor-in-chief of the propaganda television and radio company Russia Today, said that “chaos... is useful for Russia”. Read about it here. Thus, the Kremlin’s minions are trying to enrage the Ukrainian information space by talking about the failures of state communication around reports of Zaluzhnyi’s removal from the post of Commander-in-Chief.

Deepfakes remain an effective tool for spreading Russian propaganda. We have repeatedly analyzed such cases, for example, including other “statements” of Zaluzhnyi’s deepfakes. For example, on November 8, 2023, propagandists published a video with a deepfake of Zaluzhnyi, who called on Ukrainians to come to the main squares of their cities, and the military - not to obey “criminal orders of the authorities”.  Anonymous people use deepfake technology on many famous personalities; by distorting their faces, voices and facial expressions, they try to instill confidence in the audience in the “expressions” of the hero.

Among other things, we recommend reading in more detail about the use of artificial intelligence technologies, in particular deepfake ones, in spreading the pro-Kremlin agenda.