A screenshot of an article purportedly from The Moscow Times is going viral on the internet with users claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently suffered a heart attack.
An archive of the post can be seen here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
(More archives to similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)
What is the truth?: We did not find any such article published on The Moscow Times.
Further, both the images seen in the viral screenshot were generated using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool named Midjourney.
What about the news report?: We searched for the article on The Moscow Times' website but did not find the one seen in the viral screenshot.
The website did not contain any articles with the same headline.
(Source: The Moscow Times/Screenshot)
Next, we looked for news reports and updates on the official website of Kremlin but found no credible information about Putin suffering a heart attack.
On the contrary, according to Kremlin's website, he attended a meeting with Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova on 15 May.
What about the pictures?: A keyword search in Russian led us to a tweet thread carrying similar visuals.
The thread was uploaded by a user named Misha Petrov. It was uploaded on 22 March.
Petrov clarified that the images were generated by AI tool Midjourney.
The tweets were posted in a thread by Petrov.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
On checking the user's account, we found several posts which carried AI-generated images, including one showing Putin getting arrested.
Other noticeable errors: In the first image, one can see Putin's hair blurred while his face remains in focus.
The second image's full version uploaded by Petrov shows multiple pictures of Putin, one standing and the other one lying on the ground.
Both images have several noticeable discrepancies.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
Conclusion: Social media users are sharing AI-generated images of Russian President Vladimir Putin to falsely claim that he recently suffered a heart attack.
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