S Jaishankar and Sergey Lavrov AI media incident — Nov 2026
Viral deepfake videos falsely depicted Indian and Russian foreign ministers making controversial statements about international relations and diplomatic.
- Reported date
- Nov 4, 2026
- Target
- S Jaishankar and Sergey Lavrov
The exact incident date was not established. This entry is dated by its source report.
Viral social media videos recently surfaced featuring fabricated statements from India's Minister of External Affairs, S Jaishankar, and Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov. These clips, which falsely portrayed the ministers making controversial remarks regarding international relations and diplomatic interference, were identified as AI-generated content following investigations by fact-checkers and official government clarifications.
What happened
The first video claimed to show S Jaishankar expressing disappointment over a sarcastic remark from a Russian minister regarding India's conflict with China. However, reverse image searches linked the original footage to an ANI report about a G20 Foreign Ministers' meeting where no such comments were made. Technical analysis using tools including Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector, DeepFake-O-Meter, and Hive Moderation confirmed the audio was AI-generated, with Hive Moderation flagging a 99.4 percent likelihood of synthetic speech. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) officially labeled the video as fake.
The second video purported to show Sergey Lavrov claiming that India’s commercial relationship with Russia does not grant it the right to interfere in Russian foreign policy. Investigation into the video's watermark led to an Instagram account, M World News, which hosted the original footage. In the authentic clip, Lavrov discusses President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rather than criticizing India. Similar to the first incident, multiple AI detection tools flagged the audio as synthetic, and the MEA issued a formal clarification confirming the video was a deepfake. Both incidents demonstrate the use of manipulated media to spread disinformation regarding sensitive geopolitical relationships.