As Ukrainians prepare to enter the fourth week of resisting the Russian invasion of their country, a video has appeared online showing the country's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging them to stop fighting and "to lay down arms."
The video has gone viral as it suggested that the Ukrainian President has decided to "surrender" to Russia, which has started a military invasion of his country on 24 February 2022.
#Ukraine Hackers published a deep fake of @ZelenskyyUa urging citizens to lay down their arms. He responded immediately:
— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) March 16, 2022
"If I can offer someone to lay down their arms, it's the Russian military.Go home.Because we're home. We are defending our land, our children & our families." pic.twitter.com/TiICf3Z5Te
However, online people quickly rushed to warn millions of Twitter users to stop sharing it, saying it was a deep fake video that, despite its high quality, is not true.
#UkraineRussiaWar : Deepfake of #Zelensky telling Ukrainian people to lay down their arms has been removed by Facebook parent company Meta - the deeply unconvincing video had been uploaded to a hacked Ukrainian news outlet pic.twitter.com/Qt1zFXQD4p
— sebastian usher (@sebusher) March 16, 2022
Consequently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted to say that if he was going to call on anyone to lay down arms, it is the Russian military, that "should go home" and leave Ukrainians in their home, the one they are defending during this war."
The video has alarmed social media users of the great danger of sharing videos without fact-checking them, as ones pushed for propaganda purposes are on the rise, to harm Ukrainians' enthusiasm and readiness to resist the Russians.
