What happened
In June 2022 the mayors of Berlin (Franziska Giffey), Madrid (Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida) and Vienna (Michael Ludwig) each held video calls with someone presenting as Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko. Giffey's office said the call was cut short when the topics and framing became implausible, and concluded a deepfake had been used. Klitschko linked the calls to Russian efforts to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its European partners. Attribution was never publicly established.
How the deception worked
The approach exploited an entirely normal wartime diplomatic pattern: European capitals were actively arranging solidarity calls with Ukrainian city leaders, so an inbound request for a video meeting with Klitschko fit expectations and passed through official scheduling channels. On camera the impersonator looked and sounded like a figure the mayors had seen in constant media coverage, which supplied the trust signal. The caller then steered the conversation toward politically loaded subjects, apparently to elicit quotable statements about Ukrainian refugees and support for Ukraine. Berlin's staff aborted only when the substance of the conversation, rather than the imagery, stopped making sense.
AI involvement · Suspected AI-enabled
Berlin's mayoral office concluded after the call that deepfake technology had been used to render Vitali Klitschko's face and voice in a live video conference; other analysts suggested edited genuine footage may have been used instead.
The control that would have caught it· our reading, not a claim from the sources
Video identity is not authentication; inbound requests for calls with senior officials should be confirmed through the counterpart's own foreign ministry or embassy channel before the meeting is booked.
Sources (2)
- European mayors duped into calls with fake Kyiv mayorAssociated Press·clickorlando.comOpen ↗
- European mayors duped into calls with fake Kyiv mayorCNBC·cnbc.comOpen ↗
This entry summarises public reporting. It is not a legal finding, and details can change as investigations conclude. Found an error? Send a correction.