Original article (in Croatian) was published on 07/04/2023
The founder of Bellingcat used the AI program Midjourney to create a set of photos of the Russian president wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.
Facebook profile of a private user posted a photo (archived here) of the alleged arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which shows Putin wearing an orange jumpsuit and being surrounded by policemen. The photo featured the following caption: “PUTIN VLADIMIR ARRESTED!!”.
Screenshot/Facebook
The photo was published on March 18 and collected ten comments and five other reactions.
Photo created using AI tool Midjourney
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, is not featured in this photo. The photo is a photomontage. A series of photos of Putin’s arrest created by artificial intelligence began to spread on social networks after the International Criminal Court in The Hague published a warrant for his arrest, on the charge that he was involved in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.
Bellingcat’s founder Eliot Higgins, using the AI program Midjourney, created one such set of photos of the Russian president wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, which he wrote about on Twitter.
The web portal Istinomer also wrote about fake photos of Putin created by artificial intelligence. The English language fact-checking web portal Politifact also wrote about numerous fake photos of the arrest of Vladimir Putin. As they state, many reasons lead to the conclusion that the arrest photos are fake.
The International Criminal Court does not have a body that would independently arrest Putin
Putin’s arrest would be covered in detail by all the relevant world media, and there was no news anywhere that it happened. Also, according to the Russian government’s website, Putin continues to work as usual.
The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, and is governed by a 1998 United Nations treaty known as the Rome Statute. Its headquarters are in The Hague, a city in the Netherlands.
The International Criminal Court does not have its own police force or law enforcement agency to make arrests on its own and relies on the cooperation of member states, which do not include Russia. The only way they could bring Putin to justice is if he turns himself in, another country arrests him within its borders, or if Putin is overthrown in Russia and the new leaders bring him to justice.
Putin’s only trip abroad since the warrant was issued was on March 19, when he visited Mariupol, a Ukrainian city illegally annexed by Russia last September.
Also, Putin wears different clothes in each photo. The “cops” who arrest Putin and take him away in handcuffs also wear different uniforms in each photo. In one of them, Putin is wearing an orange jumpsuit, sharing a cell with two other men who are not wearing prison clothes.
In conclusion, the photos showing the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin are fake. The specific photo in the post was created using artificial intelligence by the founder of Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins, and if the arrest had really happened, numerous world media would have written about it. Therefore, we rate this post as incorrect.