Publié le 21/10/2024

Deepfakes at the heart of the Russian-Ukrainian information war

Find the new article by Christine DUGOIN-CLÉMENT, Affiliate Professor at the Sorbonne Business School.

Vladimir Putin announcing the return of Crimea to Ukraine and his own resignation, or Volodymyr Zelensky declaring his country's complete surrender: these totally fabricated videos, and others like them, have been viewed some millions of times on social networks. While Russia, in this area as in the military field, launched hostilities as early as 2014, Ukraine has now learned to employ these methods - and other tools of information warfare -, the aim of which is always to sow confusion among public opinion in the enemy country.

Since its massive invasion of Ukraine, Russia has launched numerous informational attacks targeting both different spheres of Ukrainian society and countries supporting Kiev - through operations such as Döppelganger or Portal Kombat - as well as African, Middle Eastern or Asian countries where Moscow has sought to spread pro-Russian narratives.

Less talked about, several actions of the same type, mixing cyberattacks and the use of AI to generate deepfakes were conducted by Ukrainians in the Russian informational space, notably in order to show the Russian population the reality of a war that quickly had nothing more to do with the allegedly simple "special military operation" announced by the Kremlin. [...]

> Read the full article in french on The Conversation