On October 12th, 2022, Georgian-language supporters of the “Conservative Movement” (1, 2, 3, 4) published posts about the video addresses of the President of Ukraine, claiming that Volodymyr Zelenskyt’s speeches are not being recorded on the streets of Kyiv, but in the studio. The posts are accompanied by a video showing the process of recording the speech of the President of Ukraine, while at the same time representatives of various companies talk about news and innovative technology.
Identical footage was shown on October 12th in the story of the Channel One of Russia to illustrate that the president of Ukraine is a specialist in creating “fakes” and is being assisted by Hollywood technologists. The story alleges that Zelensky’s videos were made using chroma key technology.
The widespread information, according to which Zelenskyy’s video addresses are recorded in a studio instead of the “streets of Kyiv” is without evidence. In fact, the video depicts the process of preparing a hologram of Zelensky, which appeared at four European technology conferences on June 17th, 2022.
The video that went viral on Facebook was published on the YouTube channel of the British company Talesmith on June 24th, 2022. The video shows the preparations for the technology conferences held in Europe in June 2022, where the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy was involved in the form of a hologram.
On June 15th, 2022, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, appeared in the form of a hologram at four European technical conferences, which were held simultaneously. At Vivatech in Paris, Brilliant Minds in Stockholm, the TNW conference in Amsterdam, and the Founders Forum in London, Zelenskyy’s hologram was presented on a two-meter-high touchscreen.
A hologram is a three-dimensional visual projection that depicts some kind of object or information. Obtaining a volumetric image is based on obtaining the boundary of the body-reflected wave and subsequent reconstruction. As for the chroma key technology, which is claimed to have been used to create Zelenskyy’s videos, unlike holograms, any background or setting can be created with the chroma key. This technology is often used, for example, in the creation of science fiction films, when actors move in front of a green screen, and then the background is replaced by another image. The claim that the video addresses of the President of Ukraine were recorded in this way is without evidence. Zelenskyy’s presence in Kyiv was confirmed by a number of international media and face-to-face interviews, as well as his meetings with leaders of other countries.
A video of the hologram created for the conference was posted on Talesmith’s YouTube channel. The duration of the video is 2 minutes and 34 seconds, and it matches the video shared on Facebook from 1:04 to 1:50. The documentary video about the project shows executive directors of technology companies, musicians, and designers talking about the new technology, and at the same time, the process of filming the President of Ukraine.
During the technology conference, President Zelenskyy appealed to the world’s most influential tech and creative CEOs to invest in Ukraine’s digital transformation and asked Europe’s technology communities to continue their cooperation. According to Zelenskyy, technical companies, despite the ongoing war in the country, should continue to cooperate with Ukraine.
Notably, after the emergence of the war in Ukraine, President Zelenskyy was repeatedly accused of fleeing the country or the capital. However, video addresses and speeches of the President of Ukraine showed that he remained in Kyiv. On October 10th, after Russia launched a missile attack on Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, Russian- and Georgian-language sources once again reported that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had fled Kyiv. In fact, videos of Zelenskyy released on October 10th, as well as his meeting with the US ambassador in Kyiv, proved that the Ukrainian president was indeed in Kyiv. The claims about the video recorded by Zelenskyy near the President’s residence in Kyiv on October 10 being fabricated are without evidence.
For more on the topic, see articles prepared by “Myth Detector:”
- Disinformation as if Zelenskyy Left Kyiv
- How Does the Kremlin Media Falsify the Identity of a Woman Accompanying Zelenskyy in a Hospital?
- РОССИЙСКИЕ СМИ РАСПРОСТРАНЯЮТ ДЕЗИНФОРМАЦИЮ О ТОМ, ЧТО ЗЕЛЕНСКИЙ ПРЯЧЕТСЯ ЗА ГРАНИЦЕЙ
- ВСТРЕТИЛСЯ ЛИ ЗЕЛЕНСКИЙ С ТУРЕЦКОЙ ДЕЛЕГАЦИЕЙ ВО ЛЬВОВЕ?
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