A video claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was urging his people to surrender to the Russian occupation has turned out to be fake and was immediately removed from Facebook and YouTube.

The video, which spread rapidly yesterday, showed the Ukrainian president sitting on the presidential podium, wearing a green T-shirt, as he addressed his people to lay down their arms in order to end the war with Russia.

It was all a montage with compelling audio and video material realized using the latest technology called "deepfake". This kind of creation is meant to show as very real someone who says something he did not really say. Experts have raised the concern that if these types of videos are developed and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish whether or not they are fake, they can be used to spread false information.

Currently, the video has been removed from YouTube and Facebook, managed to be distributed to a relatively high number of people. Zelensky himself appeared in a video posted on an official Twitter page in defense of Ukraine, where he said he would continue to fight for the country and refuse to lay down arms against Russia.

While through an Instagram post, he said that the only thing he can say is that "the Russians put down their weapons and flee home."

Source: CNN