A photo is circulating online showing Russian President Vladimir Putin kneeling in front of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
It’s hard to believe: Russian President Vladimir Putin is on his knees before Chinese Head of State Xi Jinping, his head buried in his lap, as the Kremlin chief kisses the Chinese ruler’s hand. It is a submissive gesture, Russia bows to China. This image is circulating wildly on the internet. Given the tension surrounding the war in Ukraine and the growing number of reports that China wants to expand its power on the international political playing field, the picture is causing a stir. It’s going viral.
“Everything lied!” – brave woman fully exposes Putin
“It’s very likely”
Turns out that scene never happened. The image is likely fake – staged by artificial intelligence. Tech reporter Amanda Florian tweeted: “It is very likely that this photo was generated by a program.” There are several signs that the image is an AI product. The original photos show the heads of state gathered against a different background, Xi Jinping’s hair is suspiciously blurred, irregular bulges can be seen on Putin’s ears.
The image was examined by the software
Florian also examined the image using software from French technology company Hugging Face. “According to this image detector, the photo is not real,” she wrote on Twitter. But there are also assumptions about another cause. An incident on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula has led to very different accounts from Moscow and Kiev of how events unfolded. While Russia said it shot down Ukrainian drones near the town of Dzhankoy on Monday night, Ukraine on Tuesday reported the destruction of Russian cruise missiles by an unspecified explosion.
“An explosion in the town of Jankoy in temporarily occupied northern Crimea destroyed Russian Kalibr-NK guided missiles while being transported by train,” Ukrainian military intelligence agency HUR told Telegram. Ukraine has denied any responsibility for the “mysterious” incident. The Russian investigative committee, on the other hand, said Russian air defense “repulsed a drone attack near the town of Jankoy in Crimea”. All drones shot down were aimed at civilian infrastructure. Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed governor of Crimea, reported one person injured by debris from a hit shell.
The divination of the “massive attack”
An adviser to the governor, Oleg Kryuchkov, accused the Ukrainian authorities of wanting to avenge Moscow’s annexation of Crimea with the attack. On the ninth anniversary of the annexation, on March 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the peninsula.
Since the start of Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine, Crimea has been repeatedly targeted by drone strikes. In early March, Russia declared that it had defended itself from a “massive attack”. Russia operates a base in the Dzhankoy area. In August 2022, an ammunition dump exploded there. Moscow spoke of “sabotage” at the time.
Rfi navigation account, time 20 minutes 03/21/2023, 16:23 | Act: 03/21/2023, 4:23 pm