Russia Was Putin’s appearance on Russian TV a digital ploy? Probably not, but it already became part of the mythology of the Ukrainian war

Saturday On social media, a Russian president raised the issue Vladimir Putin TV performance detail. Among other things, the Reddit Forum’s most popular publication on Saturday addressed the topic.

Its title was Green screen detected! Today’s “meeting” with “Aeroflot” workers that is, “Green background detected! Today’s’ meeting ‘with’ Aeroflot ’employees’.

Putin spoke on Russian state television on Saturday about the war in Ukraine as well as the airline’s female cabin staff at the airline.

But was Putin himself truly present, surrounded by flight attendants? Speaking of which In the Reddit post it was argued that no, but Putin’s contribution was filmed elsewhere and the president was added to the video afterwards digitally.

Green screen is an effect widely used in movies, for example. As the name implies, it depicts an actor in the studio in front of a green background. From there, the actor can be “detached” and added to the desired background.

The Reddit postman saw the use of a green background as a point in a Russian TV broadcast where Putin’s hand seems to go through the microphone on the table. Speculation on the subject spread widely to other online forums and social media as well.

Sounds tempting: Putin, who started the war of aggression in Ukraine, does not even venture to a Russian TV broadcast shot in a safe environment. Meanwhile, the brave president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi leads his people from besieged Kiev, and refuses to leave even though he is in danger of death.

Delicious, but probably not true.

Allegedly image manipulation was discussed, among other things, in a U.S. paper published on Saturday In an online article in Mother Jones magazine. Magazine digital producer Mark Helenowskin The story, written by the British Daily Mail, provides counter – argument to the claim HD video published on Youtube from the same Russian TV broadcast.

In it, Putin’s hand doesn’t go through the microphone but moves normally behind it. In other words, the “proof” of using a green background is probably just a disturbance in the picture due to poor quality video. If a video is copied, republished, or forwarded through, for example, messaging services, the quality of the video may be degraded and interrupted.

Of course, this also doesn’t rule out the possibility that Putin’s appearance on video could be a gimmick. There is just no clear evidence for that.

Helsingin Sanomat head of photo editing Markku Niskanen believes that people ‘s skepticism in this case has been greatly heightened by its very source: Russian state television.

That is understandable and there are good grounds for skepticism.

Much of the Russian media has long been under strong state control. During the war in Ukraine, control has been further tightened. Independent media have been ordered to shut down and state-approved war news is strongly propagandistic.

For example, the war in Ukraine should not be officially called a war in Russia, but a “special operation” in Russia in Ukraine. If the whole war that Putin started is based on lies, then why wouldn’t this TV show about the war be a lie either.

Already during the corona pandemic, many have suspected Putin of isolating himself in his own high-security conditions to avoid infection.

Niskanen however, it is reminiscent of what pictorial disinformation most often is. It may not have post-processed the images at all, but they are taken from completely different situations than what they are supposed to represent.

“It’s happening and it is being done by ordinary people on social media.”

During the corona pandemic, for example, conspiracy theorists disseminated images of massive demonstrations against corona restrictions in various countries. In fact, the masses of people shown in some of these images were from completely different events and the images may have been taken years earlier.

There have also been a lot of videos of the war in Ukraine, which are said to be from recent war situations, but they come from elsewhere – some even real-looking video games.

Niskanen also believes that the disinformation footage produced by the state’s propaganda machinery is mainly one in which the filming situation is already arranged to look certain; instead of treating the images quite differently afterwards.

Mother Jones in an article, Mark Helenowski writes that Putin’s video suspicion is part of a recent “green screen panic”.

For it means that even social media users, conspiracy theorists and journalists are increasingly suspecting the videos of politicians or governments to be fabricated, even on the basis of small technical oddities.

For example, a year ago, videos of the President of the United States spread on social media Joe Biden from the interview. Some suspected that Biden had been digitally added to the interview video. One reason, then, was the point in the video where Biden’s hand seemed to go through the microphone. The video clips were distributed, among other things Donald Trumpin supporters and conspiracy theorists. In a fact-finding case by the news agency Reuters the allegations were reviewed and found to be untrue.

Niskanen says that images that ended up in the mainstream media that have been treated as false have been received by him extremely rarely. Even these few cases are long overdue. The latest is from 2008.

“The Iranian state published a picture of the country’s missile drills, which was also published by the HS. The reader noticed that there were unnecessarily many missiles in the picture. It turned out that more of them had been copied into the picture than had actually been the case. ”

Missile image processing was observed retrospectively in many media.

Today one reason for doubts about the authenticity of news videos is, of course, the rapid development of digital technology and computer effects. When people know how to make real-looking effects on movies, for example, it is easy to suspect that even real-looking news videos can be digitally processed.

Niskanen thinks that because of this, readers’ feedback that suspects that news images and videos are false has increased recently.

But filming and handling a Hollywood movie-level, real-looking green screen scene is no small thing either. Would the Kremlin even embark on such a big project just to get Putin on video to talk to airline employees?

Now It is already being distributed on Youtube and Twitter video where Ukrainian President Zelenskyi touches the microphone with his hand at his press conference – as if to express that, unlike Putin, he is really here. Whether true or not, the video of Putin and the Green Background is already part of the mythology of the Ukrainian war.