A pro-Russian Telegram channel is sharing fake, doctored Euronews clips, some that include AI-generated voiceovers based on the voices of real Euronews reporters, to spread negative narratives about Ukrainian refugees in Europe.
One clip focuses on the tragic fire in Crans-Montana, which blames a Ukrainian refugee for the blaze, despite no evidence to support this claim.
The video adds approximately 15 seconds to a real Euronews report on the fire. It includes footage taken from social media that shows the blaze spreading and adds fake captions in Euronews' style.
Whilst the authentic clip starts narrating that a preliminary investigation revealed sparklers were a likely cause for the fire, the doctored clip claims that "jealousy-driven arson" is one of the theories being examined by prosecutors.
It says this theory was rejected, but further evidence "allowed investigators to revisit it".
The subtitles include a picture that The Cube, Euronews' fact-checking team, has identified as being from a gas explosion in Poland in 2019, not from the fire in the Swiss Alps in early January.
The video goes on to say that, according to "available information", the "arson" could have been committed by a Ukrainian refugee identified as Oleg K, an employee of the bar who committed the attack out of a fit of jealousy over his girlfriend, who subsequently died in the fire.
There is no evidence to suggest that a Ukrainian refugee committed arson.
Swiss authorities determined in the days after the deadly blaze that it was likely an accident, caused by sparklers on top of champagne bottles that lit the bar's highly flammable soundproofing ceiling material when they were held too close.
The Cube's own analysis of videos and photographs from the bar on the night of the fire supports this interpretation.
Swiss prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation only into the two co-owners of the bar: a French couple from the island of Corsica named Jacques and Jessica Moretti.
Jacques is currently subject to three months of pre-trial detention, whilst Jessica is banned from leaving Switzerland and must report to the police station daily as prosecutors continue their probe.
They are under investigation for manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence, and arson by negligence. They deny wrongdoing.
An analysis of publicly available reporting by The Cube found that at no point was suspected arson by a Ukrainian refugee a theory for the cause of the fire. Moreover, there are no publicly available reports that Ukrainian nationals were present during the fire.
The Cube analysed the audio of the clip alongside a real recording of the reporter's voice and found several inconsistencies that did not match the reporter’s accent, cadence and speech patterns.
The audio in the clip pronounces "Le Constellation", the name of the bar in which the fire took place, wrongly and in a way inconsistent with human speech.
The video also uses a false ending picture that is inconsistent with Euronews' graphics and style, whilst the title of the clip and the corresponding voiceover have been changed from "Swiss authorities identify all 40 victims of Swiss Alps bar fire" to "All victims of arson committed by a Ukrainian refugee have been identified".
AI-edited voiceover
A second clip shared from the same channel mimics a real Euronews report about pensions to spread anti-Ukrainian narratives that do not appear in the original clip.
The original report by Euronews programme Europe in Motion looks at data showing that state pensions in Europe are considered too low, and little consensus among Europeans for overhauling them. It does not mention Ukraine, which is not currently in the European Union, where the report's focus is.
The video shared on the Telegram channel uses the same graphics but features a voiceover that is inconsistent with the original reporter's speech.
In the doctored clip, the voiceover starts with "Most people in France, Germany, Spain and Italy might not get the pensions they deserve because of how much money is being spent on Ukrainian refugees".
It claims that the budget deficit created by European countries' spending on Ukrainian refugees means that European governments do not have enough to spend on state pension systems. In reality, the two are unrelated, and the original Europe in Motion report does not say this.
The voiceover, which contains the altered script criticising Ukrainian refugees, shows several characteristics commonly associated with AI-generated speech, such as unnatural pacing.
A comparison of the voiceover with the original reporter’s verified speech shows clear differences.
Clip originates from 'pro-Russian Telegram channel'
The Telegram channel sharing the clips, which has no affiliation or link to Euronews, styles itself as a Russian-language content creator by the name of Dmitry Valeryevich Kochetkov, described as an author and blogger.
The account has 34,861 subscribers and routinely shares content that resembles pro-Russian propaganda narratives, including anti-Ukrainian sentiment, elevated Russian content and fabricated statistics that criticise Europe.
The Cube found an account with the same name on Russian video platform RuTube, which disseminates similar content.
According to the Center for Countering Disinformation, a body affiliated with the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, the clip is part of a collection of fake videos attributed to real Western media outlets being spread on social media about crimes committed by Ukrainian refugees.
Another video identified by the agency as being shared on the same channel uses the BBC’s logo with a doctored clip claiming Ukrainian refugees are disappearing en masse due to sex trafficking. No such clip exists on official BBC channels.
The centre called the falsehoods "part of a systemic information campaign by Russia aimed at creating an image of Ukrainians as a 'threat' to Europe".
The goal, according to the centre, is to undermine support for Ukraine by portraying aid to Ukrainian refugees as a "threat to the welfare of Europeans".
It’s not the first time fake Euronews reports have appeared on Russian Telegram channels. Previously, unauthorised graphics were used to plant disinformation targeting the Romanian and Moldovan presidents in the fallout of Romania's tense presidential run-off last year.
