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Purported Deepfake Targets Olena Zelenska in Alleged Russian Disinformation Campaign

5 news reports Snapshot 7 Sep 2026

In brief

An AI system built by Deepfake Technology Developers and Synthetic Audio Generation Technology Developers and deployed by Verite Cachee France, Russian Linked Disinformation Network and 4 others allegedly harmed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Olena Zelenska and 8 others.

Risk domain
Malicious Actors & Misuse Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale
Occurred
Coverage
5 reportsJul 2024

What happened

A purported deepfake video falsely suggesting that Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, purchased a luxury car, reportedly circulated widely online. The video is reportedly part of a Russian-linked disinformation campaign aimed at undermining Ukraine and its supporters.

Laws that address this harm

Policy angle: Classified under Malicious Actors & Misuse (Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale) in the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy; 5 recorded instruments address this use case.

Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).

News reports (5)

Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.

  1. Deepfake video targeting Zelensky’s wife linked to Russian disinformation campaign, CNN analysis shows
    cnn.com · Gianluca Mezzofiore
  2. "Olena Zelenska ha comprato una Bugatti con i fondi per la guerra”. Spopola la fake news russa per manipolare le elezioni Usa e inglesi
    repubblica.it · Paolo Brera
  3. Deepfake targets Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenksa with false claim she bought Bugatti
    cbsnews.com · Erielle Delzer
  4. «Olena Zelenska e la Bugatti da 4,5 milioni di euro comprata con i soldi degli aiuti all'Ucraina»: cosa c'è dietro la fake news sulla moglie del presidente ucraino
    corriere.it · Lorenzo Stasi
  5. "Western expert" John Dougan tells the world about the Zelenskyyʼs drug courier and his wifeʼs Bugatti. The story of an American pervert and liar who was sheltered by Russia
    babel.ua · Sofiia Korotunenko, Dmytro Rayevskyi

Who was involved

Alleged harmed party
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Olena Zelenska, Government Of Ukraine, General Public Of Ukraine, General Public Of The United States, General Public Of The European Union, Bugatti, Relations Between The United States And Ukraine, Epistemic Integrity, National Security And Intelligence Stakeholders

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Causal entity
Human
Intent
Intentional
Timing
Post-deployment
Harm level
—
Sectors
—
Countries
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Risk entries describing this failure mode

Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 4.1.

  • Political manipulation

    "Political manipulation - Use or misuse of personal data to target individuals’ interests, personalities and vulnerabilities with tailored political messages via micro-advertising or deepfakes/synthetic media."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Coercion/manipulation

    "Coercion/manipulation - Use of a technology system to covertly alter user beliefs and behaviour using nudging, dark patterns and/or other opaque techniques, resulting in potential erosion of privacy, addiction, anxiety/...

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Political and Economic

    "Political and Economic - Manipulation of political beliefs, damage to political institutions and the effective delivery of government services."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Electoral interference

    "Electoral interference - Generation of false or misleading information that can interrupt or mislead voters and/or undermine trust in electoral processes."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Political

    "In the UK, a form of initial computational propaganda has already happened during the Brexit referendum1 . In future, there are concerns that oppressive governments could use AI to shape citizens’ opinions"

    The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)

  • Biased influence through citizen screening and tailored propaganda

    "AI-powered chatbots tailor their communication approach to influence individual users' decisions. In the UK, a form of initial computational propaganda has already happened during the Brexit referendum. In future, there...

    The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)

  • Surveillance and Censorship

    "Content moderation has emerged as one of the key use-cases of LLMs (Weng et al., 2023), indicating the potential of LLMs for surveillance and censorship as well (Edwards, 2023). Surveillance and censorship are one of th...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

  • Disinformation and manipulation of public opinion

    "AI, particularly general- purpose AI, can be maliciously used for disinformation (351), which for the purpose of this report refers to false information that was generated or spread with the deliberate intent to mislead...

    International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI (Bengio2024)

Incidents in the same risk subdomain

All incidents in this subdomain

Source record: incident #755 on the AI Incident Database · all 5 reports