Creative agency Mixtape used deepfake technology to bring the former premier of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, back from the afterlife to promote the Holodomor National Awareness Tour.

In an almost believable spot, Stalin claims he was the inventor of fake news and takes credit for the establishment of “alternative facts,” as he was able to “cover up” the history of Holodomor genocide – a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine that took place in the 1930s, killing millions.

The “truth,” which is posed as a question in the 75-second spot, is that Stalin and his government were the manufacturers of the Holodomor genocide, whereby private farms were abolished and state-owned collective farms were established in their place to fulfill grain collection quotas. They then relayed that the country was in starvation to the Kremlin, asking for aid and a curtailment in the grain quota for the country.

Mixtape worked with Paul “Fakening” Shales – who the agency describes as “a pioneer” of deepfake technology – to develop the campaign for the Holodomor National Awareness Tour, a project of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and its three partners, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, as well as the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre in Toronto.

The spot encourages people to seek info about the historical event online and help the organization have the term “Holodomor” recognized in dictionaries.