A video circulating on X, bearing the logo of M World, purports to show Russian foreign minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov saying that India is merely an oil-trading partner to Russia and that the two countries share only a commercial relationship. In the video, Lavrov is also heard claiming that India has no right to interfere in Russia’s foreign policy or advise Moscow on matters concerning Russia, Ukraine, the United States or any other country.

Supreme Court advocate and activist Prashant Bhushan shared the video on his X account (@pbhushan1), which he later deleted. In his post, he criticized the Indian government and questioned what kind of advice external affairs minister S Jaishankar gave to Russia.

Another X account, Diya Kapoor, also shared the video with the similar claim of Sergey Lavrov drawing clear boundaries about the relationship with India.

Some X accounts also shared this video with the claim of Sergey Lavrov dismissing India.

Fact Check

After a closer examination of the video, the movements of Sergey Lavrov while speaking appear unnatural and seem out of sync with the audio. This suggests that the clip may have been edited or manipulated. Using this as a lead, we performed a Google reverse image search on several keyframes from the video and found a video with the same background and clothing uploaded by M WORLD on October 31.

A comparison of the two videos shows that Sergey Lavrov’s clothing, background, head movements, and hand gestures are the same, with only the audio being different. Even the ‘M World’ YouTube channel logo appeared in both videos, confirming that the original video had been digitally manipulated. Both videos also feature the exact same glitch at the same moment.

In the original video, Sergey Lavrov is seen refusing the reports from Ukrainian officials claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and stating if Zelenskyy wants a direct meeting, he must travel to Moscow, where Russia will guarantee his safety and security.

Media outlet DW News posted the original video on October 31 showing the conversation about President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy meeting.

Furthermore, the official X account of the Russian Embassy in India, Russia in India (@RusEmbIndia) has also debunked the video. “Please stop copying silly AI fakes,” it said in a comment to the X post by Diya Kapoor.

Union government’s official MEA fact check account, too, flagged the post as fake.

To sum up, the viral video claiming that Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov publicly dismissed India’s diplomatic standing is completely false and an AI-generated deepfake. The original footage contains a briefing regarding Russia-Ukraine relations, and there is no mention of India.

Twinkle Shrivastav is an intern at Alt News.

False
Claim:
Russian Foreign Minister said India is only an oil trading partner, they holds no right to advise Russia.

The content is factually incorrect or fabricated.

Read our methodology