Deepfake, propaganda and disinformation – how Russia and Ukraine battled the information war?

Three weeks had passed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. The world and global organisations were expecting Kyiv to fall soon, finding it difficult to believe that the war-hit nation can sustain even a month of offensive.

At such a crucial point, a video appeared in which Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his signature green attire, was seen addressing his soldiers from behind a podium on which the Ukrainian state emblem was present.

In the video, Zelensky was seen asking his soldiers to lay down their weapons and go back to their families. “There is no need to die in this war. I advise you to live,” he was seen as saying. The video was massively circulated on social media and briefly ran on Ukraine’s television which suggested that the leader had fled from Kyiv. The video clearly indicated that the war is about to end, contrary to the fact that it’s been now one year of war and the end is not in sight.

Deepfakes

The one-minute video clip shared was called a ‘deepfake’ – a term to define the sophisticated hoax in which artificial intelligence is used for creating a fake image and most commonly fake videos.

The video which was posted by the hackers was instantly removed from social media platforms and debunked. Zelensky dismissed it as a “childish provocation,” and mocked Russia for desperately spreading fake news.

In the last one year of the war, deepfakes have been just one element amongst the barrage of disinformation and manipulation which have shaped the information war.

Recruitment of serial killers, cannibal

In September 2022, reports surfaced of Russian President Vladimir Putin is recruiting serial killers, rapists and a maniac cannibal from prisons in a desperate attempt to win the Ukraine war. A report by Daily Mail claimed that the prisoners were ensured that they will be pardoned if they come out alive from the battlefield.

The recruitment was believed to have been carried out by Russia’s Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Progozhin who had made visits to a former Gulag prisoner camp in Serbia, the reports had claimed. It was reported that several of these hired prisoners lost their lives on the battlefield. The reports of recruitment still remain unconfirmed.

Church on fire

In another incident, the story of a Russian church being set on fire in north-western Ukraine’s Volyn region was broadcasted by ‘Channel One’, inciting emotions and anger among viewers. The news was intensely covered on January 15, 2022, in which it was claimed that the church was attached to the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ukrainian nationalists were responsible for the arson.

However, later the local authorities of Volyn confirmed that no church was set on fire in the area, calling the news “fake”.

Crucifixion of boy

In an interview in July 2014, a woman named Galina Pyshniak spoke about how Ukrainian nationalists crucified a three-year-old child in front of his mother. The story, which was aired during an escalating conflict between the two nations in Donbas, quickly triggered the emotions of Russians.

It was later found that the claims made by Pyshniak were entirely fabricated and that no such incident had taken place.

OSINT countering disinformation in the infowar

The information war, which has been marred by disinformation, manipulation and deepfakes, is being countered by open source intelligence, or OSINT.

OSINT includes information which is accessible publicly, like footage recorded by mobile phones and images taken by commercial satellite company ‘Maxar’, which are then investigated by investigative media like Bellingcat./msn