During the past few months, politicians from the UK, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have become targets of the grave cyber threats posed by AI-generated deepfake media. Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliaments of the three Baltic States, as well as their British counterpart Tom Tugendhat, have received deceptive video calls from individuals posing as Russian opposition figures.

Tugendhat alleged in a tweet that such cyber manipulations were backed President Putin’s party to “discredit the Navalny team,” referring to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

A tweet by Tom Tugendhat, Chairman of the UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee

Richard Kols, who chairs the foreign affairs committee of Latvia’s parliament, tweeted a picture comparing the actual and the false face of Leonid Volkov, a member of Navalny’s party. “How easy or difficult it is to distinguish between the two – judge for yourself,” said the caption.

The real Leonid Volkov (an ally of Russian opposition leader Navalny) vs his deepfake doppelganger, as seen in the video call.

In another detailed explanation, Kols revealed that it was in March that he received an email from an impostor claiming to be Leonid Volkov, asking to address the Saeima Foreign Affairs Commission. “The conversation took place in a video conference format where this fake Volkov thanked Latvia for their support and strict position on EU sanctions, stressed that international pressure is important to release A. Navalny and other political prisoners, as well as explained by A. Navalny's position regarding the nationality of the Russian occupied Crimean Peninsula,” the post added.

Commenting on the developments, Volkov wrote: “Quite an impressive campaign! But what is the most impressive – "my" face on the conference call with the Baltic Chairmans. Looks like my real face – but how did they manage to put it on the Zoom call? Welcome to the deepfake era.”

Terming the cyber attack as an effort to spread disinformation and sow discord between nations, a joint statement issued by the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliaments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania read: “Technological advances have opened many doors…but simultaneously machine learning and the evolution of deepfake technologies being used by foreign and criminal cyber actors are becoming increasingly relevant.”