The mayor of Berlin, Madrid and Vienna filed complaints over someone impersonating their counterpart in Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, during what was reported as a 'deepfake' video call. It was not in fact a deepfake it was just a look-alike.

Franziska Giffey, said 'he looked and sounded like Klitschko' on the Webex video conferencing platform that but that she grew suspicious when he spoke of Ukrainian refugees cheating the German state of benefits. He then appeared to call for refugees to be brought back to Ukraine for military service. The Berlin mayor’s office contacted the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, who confirmed through authorities in Kyiv, that the person on the video call was not the real Klitschko. 

José Luis Martínez-Almeida grew suspicious soon after the start of the conversation and interrupted the call. The Madrid mayor’s office filed a complaint with the police.

Michael Ludwig took to Twitter to share news that he had talked via video call to Klitschko but the tweet was soon deleted. Shortly afterwards, the Austrian capital’s official account put out a statement that Ludwig appeared to have been the victim of a “serious case of cybercrime”.