Did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy release a video in which he talked about actor Jackie Chan coming to Ukraine? No, that's not true: The video was fabricated using genuine footage of an earlier appearance by the president, with an added artificial intelligence-generated voice track.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) published by kirtaxi_minsk (archived here) on February 18, 2024, with a caption translated into English from Russian by Lead Stories staff that reads:
Ukraine, watch this storyteller [refering to President Zelenskyy].
Guys, I even forgot that my content is about aviation 🤣 A story about Jackie Chan by Zelenskyy. Ukrainians, answer my question. What does your Zeleboba [Zelenskyy's nickname] take? I couldn't help but post this 🤣 Does Jackie Chan know that he came 😂 😂
The fabricated Zelenskyy audio, translated into English, says:
Jackie Chan has come to Ukraine. The little Chinese intends to make our fighters superwarriors and ninjas, who will scare the enemy with their super moves alone. Jackie was filming a Polish TV series in Krakow, and during one of the scenes he jumped onto a train roof and landed in Ukraine.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Feb 20 07:00:00 2024 UTC)
An original version of the video (archived here) was posted by TikTok channel garant.constitucii (archived here) on February 15, 2024, and was labeled as AI-generated. According to its biography, the channel specializes in deepfake videos involving politicians with the majority of them featuring the Ukrainian president.
The TikTok post featured in this fact check does not reveal the video contains a fabricated audio track that is AI-generated and it misleadingly suggests the comments are real.
A reverse image search of the video conducted on Google Lens (archived here) on February 19, 2024, returned a match to a February 12, 2024 video address by Volodymyr Zelenskyy (archived here) on the issues of providing greater capabilities to mobile firing groups. The president did not mention actor Jackie Chan during the speech.
