Duo behind imitation chief of staff Navalny: ‘it was not a deepfake but a doppelganger’

Two Russian pranksters tell The Verge that they were responsible for the ‘deepfake’ that met with some MPs almost two weeks ago. They state that it was a doppelganger and not a deepfake.

Initially, the news about this ‘deepfake’ came out a week ago. The permanent parliamentary committee for foreign affairs, consisting of several members of the House of Representatives, is said to have had a conversation via Zoom with the chief of staff of the Russian opposition leader Navalny, a man named Alexei Volkov. After that meeting, however, the committee revealed that it had “confirmed that it had spoken to someone posing as Volkov.”

Although the standing parliamentary committee made no claims about a deepfake, other parties who had spoken with ‘Volkov’ did. The real Leonid Volkov, the Parliamentary Committee of the Baltic States and the Latvian TV channel LTV concluded that it was a real-time deepfake.

The two pranksters believed to be behind the fake meetings have been in touch with The Verge. As proof that they were behind it, they shared correspondence between them and their targets with the site. They also uploaded a recording of a meeting with the fake Volkov and Ukrainian politicians on YouTube. The Verge also found the video where last week’s “deepfake” screenshot came from: a video from 2018.

Stolyarov posing as Volkov (via The Verge)

The men claim that it was not a deepfake, but that one of the two resembles Volkov enough that a little make-up and a well-chosen camera angle were enough to set up a convincing imitation. The Verge agrees that one of the two looks a bit like Volkov, based on a video call with the Russians.

The duo, consisting of Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, are more likely to play this kind of prank on politicians and celebrities. The two say that they mainly just want to have fun with the jokes and to elicit embarrassing statements from their targets. Volkov was chosen as a target due to the fact that one of the two looks like him and the current affairs of Navalny. Volkov would also have little or no contact with Western politicians, making them easier to convince. The Verge goes on to say that they told The Guardian a few years ago that they also “don’t want to do anything to help Russia’s enemies.”