Another Deepfake Scandal: This Time By Russian Opposition

Deepfake means a video of a person in which face or body altered to pretend to be someone else. Here, deepfake scandal encountered through Zoom video call imitating to be Leonid Volkov (Russian Politician).

Leonid Volkov is an ally of Alexei Navalny. Navalny is a famous Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption activist. He organizes political demonstrates related to corruption against President Vladimir Putin.

European Union Senior Officials Tricked

In recent past few days, some senior European MPs have been approached through emails to conduct a meeting regarding support for Russian political prisoners and the takeover of Crimea.

People tricked by deepfake include Richard Kols, who chairs the Foreign Affairs committee Latvia’s parliament, MPs from Estonia and Lithuania, and Tom Tugendhat who chairs the Foreign Affairs select committee of the UK, reports The Guardian.

Richard Kols Stated

Richard uploaded a picture of Leonid Volkov and a screenshot of a person from the Zoom meeting in his Twitter account and saying “It is a painful lesson to him and his Lithuanian and Estonian colleagues” and he also wrote that “It is clear that the so-called truth decay or post-truth and post-fact era has the potential to seriously threaten the safety and stability of local and international countries, governments and societies”.

Tom Tugendhat also stated

Tugendhat also tweeted about this and said “Putin Kremlin is so weak and frightened of the strength of @navalny they are conduction fake meetings to discredit the Navalny team”.

Tom directly targeting Putin and supporting Navalny and his team. And giving a message to Putin that they are with Navalny. Tom did the meeting with Alexei Navalny in which he said Putin is a thief and a murderer. Tom says they will not going to release these video bits so he is putting this on Twitter.

Leonid Volkov Reaction

Leonid Volkov responds to Richard Kols by tweeting that the other person in the picture looks like him but in confusion, he also that how did they manage to fake a face in a video call and also says Welcome to the deepfake era…..

Leonid Volkov accuses a Russian duo named Vavan and Lexus, who regularly target European officials, of the video call.

Through these statements, we cannot say for sure that these deepfake/fake meetings are suspected to be done by Putin Kremlin. But all suspects are going against him as Navalny and his team is the biggest threat to him. He also has full motive to defame him around the world and leads to no one supports him.

Through this incidence, we also state that through developing technology criminal offenses are increasing to the government also. I hope you got this information useful. If any query please let me know by sending your query in the comment section.