Deepfake Attacks on Ukrainians: Scammers Clone Relatives' Voices Using AI
New AI fraud schemes are rapidly spreading in Ukraine, where criminals use deepfake technologies to imitate the voices of relatives, military personnel, or acquaintances to lure money.
A few years ago, phone scams were mostly based on psychological pressure and fabricated stories about car accidents or detentions of loved ones. Today, the situation has become much more complex, as just a few seconds of a voice recording from social networks or voice messages are enough for artificial intelligence to create an almost complete copy.
Particularly dangerous are so-called voice deepfakes — technologies that replicate the timbre, intonation, and speech mannerisms of a specific person. Such tools are increasingly used for fraud, extortion of money, and gaining access to banking data.
The problem has become especially relevant for Ukraine during the war, when citizens are emotionally vulnerable to messages about their relatives or military family members. Despite the absence of a specific law on deepfake, Ukrainian legislation already allows holding perpetrators accountable for fraud, illegal use of personal data, and other cybercrimes.
How deepfake is regulated in Ukraine
There is currently no separate law on deepfake or AI content in Ukraine. However, this does not mean the absence of legal regulation.
In most cases, general provisions of the Criminal Code apply, primarily Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine concerning fraud. If deepfake is used for illegal data collection or interference with information systems, Articles 182, 361, and 361-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine may also apply.
Additionally, victims can use mechanisms to protect honor, dignity, business reputation, and privacy provided by the Civil Code of Ukraine.
At the state policy level, Ukraine is gradually aligning with European approaches to regulating artificial intelligence. In particular, attention is paid to the transparency of AI content and responsibility for manipulative use of such technologies.
How AI voice fraud works
Scammers most often first obtain a short voice recording of a person — from TikTok, Telegram, Instagram, or YouTube. Then, using AI services, a voice copy is created.
Next, the victim receives a call supposedly from a son, daughter, husband, or friend, informing them of a critical situation: an accident, captivity, detention, injury, or urgent need for money.
Legally, such actions are considered classic fraud, since the main element remains deceiving the person.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the defining feature of fraud is deception or abuse of the victim's trust. Even if the latest AI technologies are used, the legal nature of the crime does not change.
What complicates investigations
Deepfake technologies create new challenges for law enforcement. Primarily, it is difficult to determine the source of the audio creation, identify the perpetrators, and prove that the recording was generated by artificial intelligence.
Moreover, servers and accounts are often located outside Ukraine, and funds can be quickly transferred via cryptocurrency or fictitious bank accounts.
Because of this, the law enforcement system is effectively forced to adapt traditional fraud-fighting mechanisms to new digital forms of crime.
What to do after a suspicious deepfake call: step-by-step instructions
- Do not immediately comply with the interlocutor's demands
If during the call you are pressured to urgently transfer money, informed about an accident, captivity, detention, or "bank problems," it is advisable to end the conversation and not act under emotional pressure. The cyber police specifically warn that scammers often use intimidation and urgency effects.
- Verify the information yourself
You should personally call the relative back, write to them in another messenger, or contact acquaintances. If it is supposedly a call "from the bank," you should independently dial the official bank number listed on the card or the institution's website.
- Immediately contact the bank
If money has already been transferred, you need to urgently notify the bank about the fraud and request to block the transaction or the recipient's account. The National Bank of Ukraine recommends contacting the bank and cyber police immediately in cases of payment fraud.
- Preserve digital evidence
The cyber police recommend saving all digital traces as quickly as possible: audio recordings, screenshots, phone numbers, links, correspondence, transfer receipts, and screen recordings. This is especially important in deepfake cases, as criminals can quickly delete content or accounts.
- File a report with the police or cyber police
You can report fraud through the nearest police department or electronically to the Cyber Police of Ukraine at https://ticket.cyberpolice.gov.ua. It is advisable to include all known data in the report: phone number, accounts, bank details, call times, and communication methods.
- Check numbers and resources via "StopFraud"
On the cyber police resource "StopFraud," you can check a phone number, bank card, or website link if they have already been involved in fraud schemes.
- Demand removal of deepfake content
If fake audio or video is spreading on social networks or messengers, it is worth contacting platform administrators to request content blocking. In cases of privacy, honor, or business reputation violations, court action is also possible.
Read also in the "Judicial and Legal Newspaper" article: how the Cyber Police advises recognizing pseudo-volunteers and how not to become a victim of scammers.
Judicial perspective
In 2025–2026, the Supreme Court began actively shaping approaches to evaluating electronic evidence, digital content, and the use of artificial intelligence technologies in legal relations.
A notable example is the ruling of the Kyiv Court of Appeal dated April 20, 2026, in case No. 757/11875/26-к, where the court directly described the use by participants of a fraudulent call center of "Deepfake" technology during video calls with victims. According to case materials, scheme participants changed their faces in real time to conceal their identity and create the appearance of a legitimate legal company.
Although the court did not establish a separate legal approach to deepfake in this case, the very presence of such circumstances in criminal proceedings indicates the actual entry of AI technologies into organized fraud and the future need for special regulation of digital identity and synthetic content.
"Judicial and Legal Newspaper", analyzing the latest Supreme Court practice regarding electronic evidence, noted that the absence of a qualified electronic signature alone does not make electronic evidence inadmissible. The Supreme Court proceeds from the necessity to evaluate such evidence together with metadata, system logs, IP addresses, and other digital traces, and data from online platforms can be recognized as proper evidence if their origin and integrity are confirmed.
This approach will be important for future disputes concerning deepfake content, where the key issue will be establishing the authenticity of audio and video recordings.
Thus, Ukrainian legislation is currently lagging behind the pace of generative artificial intelligence development. However, even without a specific law, deepfake and AI fraud can already fall under existing criminal and civil law provisions.
Judicial practice is gradually adapting to new digital risks, indicating that in the coming years, AI regulation may become one of the key directions in legal development.
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