AI-Generated Video of Putin Portraying Him Announcing the End of the War in Ukraine Is Being Distributed

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On December 16, a Russian-language Facebook account posted a short video, so-called reels, featuring Vladimir Putin delivering a speech. In the video, Putin states that he is ending the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin: “I address all residents of our country, from Voronezh to Vladivostok. Given that the West is meeting all our demands and providing all necessary security guarantees, I hereby announce the cessation of the special operation and the complete withdrawal of our troops from Ukrainian territory.”

ვლადიმერ პუტინი

The video of Vladimir Putin in which he says that he plans to end the war in Ukraine is fabricated. The Russian president has not made any such statement. The video was most likely generated using artificial intelligence.

The video circulated on Facebook includes the name of the TikTok account that appears to be its original source. The video is AI-generated. Vladimir Putin has not made any such announcement. Moreover, at a press conference on December 19, 2024, when asked if he would have launched the “special military operation” if he could have returned to February 2024, he replied that considering the current circumstances, he would have launched it even earlier.

To determine whether traces of the use of artificial intelligence were present in the video, Myth Detector consulted Witness, an organization specializing in identifying AI and deepfake technologies. Three separate teams analyzed the video and concluded that both the visuals and audio are inauthentic and were most likely generated by artificial intelligence.

Witness compared the voice used in the video with Vladimir Putin’s authentic voice and found very minimal similarity between the two. Additionally, according to the organization, only 28.15% of the frames in the video are fully authentic, while the remaining portions have been altered.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and continues to this day. On December 19, 2024, Vladimir Putin held his final press conference of the year. Speaking on the topic of Ukraine, he said that Russia was ready for a compromise in possible talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and would not impose any conditions on the Ukrainian government. He said he was ready to talk to everyone, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, but any agreement must be signed by Ukraine’s legitimate authorities, which, according to the Russian president, is currently only the Ukrainian parliament.

A journalist from RBK asked Putin whether, if he could have returned to February 2022, he would have started the “special military operation” (a term used in Russia to refer to the full-scale war in Ukraine). He responded, “If it were possible to go back in time, knowing what’s happening now, I would have considered deciding on a special operation earlier.”

Earlier, an AI-generated video of Vladimir Putin was also circulated in which he appeared to discuss the return of Abkhazia to Georgia. In reality, Putin never made such a statement, and the video was edited using footage from one of his speeches.


The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.

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Topic: Politics
Country: Russia, Ukraine
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