In an embarrassing AI-generated mishap, Russian state television broadcast footage of fighter jets displaying flags of NATO and its European member states during the annual Victory Day military parade on Saturday. The blunder occurred as President Vladimir Putin was praising Russian troops in Ukraine, calling the conflict a struggle against an aggressive NATO-backed force.
AI-Generated Footage Error
The error appeared in AI-generated footage used by state media to provide close-up views of the flypast by the Russian Knights and Swifts aerobatic teams. Instead of Russian markings, the jets bore the flags of the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. The parade marked the 81st anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany.
Putin used his Victory Day speech to assert that “victory has always been and will be ours,” referring to the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year. The parade was scaled back, with no heavy weaponry displayed for the first time in nearly two decades, due to what the Defence Ministry called the “current operational situation” and the threat of Ukrainian drone attacks.
Security and Reactions
Security was tight in Moscow, with bodyguards carrying bulletproof shields and what appeared to be a nuclear briefcase near Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, responding to a US-brokered ceasefire, issued a decree mockingly permitting Russia to hold its parade and declaring Red Square off-limits to Ukrainian strikes. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the decree as a “silly joke,” adding that no threats were detected during the event.
