After a manipulated phone call with a false Klitschko, Berlin’s governing mayor wants to start a new attempt “in the next few days”. This time the video link with the mayor of Kiev is to be tested for authenticity. Warsaw also reports a fake call.
After a fake video link last Friday, Berlin’s governing mayor Franziska Giffey now wants to speak to her real colleague from Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, in a timely manner – and in doing so, also protect herself against renewed manipulation. The SPD politician announced that a video call would be planned, before which there would be some kind of test of the authenticity of the conversation partner. “We will coordinate this very closely with the (Ukrainian) embassy.” The conversation is planned before her vacation, i.e. “in the next few days” until mid-July. It had been agreed that it would be in German.
Last Friday, Giffey spoke via video with a person who looked like Klitschko but wasn’t Klitschko. After a while, because of various questions from her counterpart, she began to doubt whether she was connected to the real Mayor of Kiev. The conversation then ended prematurely. It remains unclear what kind of manipulation it was exactly and what the motive was behind it.
The Berlin Senate Chancellery announced on Friday that it appeared to be a deep fake. This involves media content that has been manipulated using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. It has since been revealed that the mayors of Vienna, Madrid, Budapest and Warsaw have also been tricked in a similar way to Giffey.
The Polish media reported that Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski’s talks with his alleged counterpart in Kiev took place at the beginning of June. After several such fake phone calls from a fake Klitschko had become public in the past few days, Trzaskowski confirmed his conversation to Radio Zet on Monday.
Suspicious of the course of the conversation, Trzaskowski’s employees immediately contacted the office of the real Klitschko in Kyiv, according to the PAP news agency. From there it was assured that the mayor of Kiev had not made a video call at that time. The Warsaw City Hall therefore turned on the police.
Trzaskowski took the obvious fraud calmly. No sensitive issues were discussed, the liberal politician assured Radio Zet. According to PAP information, the Warsaw City Hall is now planning to organize a joint video conference of the affected mayors of Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest and Madrid. This then real video conference should send out a signal of solidarity with Kyiv.
The Berlin head of government spoke of a completely new dimension. “This means a massive change in communication and the need to check whether those who take part in such conversations are really who they say they are,” said Giffey. “This has implications for democracy and “for the way we communicate “.
