New Delhi (Vishvas News). Following the sinking of the Iranian warship IRIS Dena by a US submarine during the ongoing conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran, a video of Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi has gone viral.
The post purportedly suggests that General Dwivedi admitted India shared the vessel's location with Israel, leading to its destruction.
Vishvas News investigated and found this claim to be fake. Gen Dwivedi has not made any such statement, and the video circulating with this claim is AI-created and is being shared for propaganda purposes.
What is viral?
X user 'Far' shared the viral video on March 9, 2026, with the caption, 'India officially confesses it backstabbed Iran and shared the location of an Iranian ship with Israel. The Indian Army Chief explains how he gave the Israelis the exact location of the Iranian Navy ship and how it was targeted. Disgusting act by Indians.'
Investigation
The viral video clip is about a minute long, in which General Dwivedi can be heard saying, 'We are closely monitoring the situation in Iran. Israel is our close ally. The sinking of an Iranian naval ship is indeed unfortunate, but it was done in international waters. As long as the Iranian ship remained in Indian waters, it remained protected. But when they crossed the international waters, as Israeli strategic allies, it was our duty to inform Israel about their exact location as a part of our. What Israel does in international waters is their business. We remain grateful to Prime Minister Netanyahu for helping us. importing Russian fuel.'
Listening to General Dwivedi's statement in the video, it is evident that this is not a natural statement that could be made by the Indian Army Chief, raising suspicion that the video is a deepfake. Therefore, we decided to check the video using deepfake detection tools.
We checked the video clip using Hive Moderation, which confirmed a 100% probability of the audio being a deepfake.
We conducted a reverse image search to trace the original source of the video clip. This led us to a video of General Dwivedi's original speech on Firstpost's official YouTube channel, where he was speaking about Operation Sindoor and other issues at the Raisina Dialogue.
Transcription Analysis: Using YouTube's AI feature, 'Ask', we obtained a transcription of the original video. General Dwivedi did not mention anything regarding the US, Israel, or the Iran conflict.
The transcript of this conversation can be read here. (This transcription may contain some errors, generated using AI.)
For further verification, we contacted the Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU). They shared analyses from several other detection tools, including Hiya, which confirmed the audio track was AI-created.
The Hiya tool's analysis confirms the possibility of this video clip beingAI-created. Hive's AI audio classifier also confirms the possibility of the audio track between 0.10-0.30 being AI-created.
What's the context?
According to a BBC report, 'US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that the US torpedoed and sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean. However, Hegseth did not name the Iranian ship that was sunk. Earlier, the Sri Lankan Navy reported that the 'Iris Dena' had sunk in the Indian Ocean, with approximately 140 people missing out of a total of 180 on board.
According to another report, 'This screenshot of a video (of the attack) provided by the US Department of Defence shows that a US submarine sank the Iranian frigate Iris Dena in support of 'Operation Epic Fury' in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Sri Lanka, on March 4, 2026.'
According to the Iran Crisis Index on acleddata.com, the US and Israel initiated military action against Iran on February 28, 2026, which is still ongoing.
Iran has also retaliated by targeting other countries in West Asia that are US allies. This index tracks locations of US military action, Iranian retaliation, and joint US-Israeli operations.
The user who shared the viral deepfake video has been active on X since February 2011 and is currently operating the account from the UK. This X account shares content motivated by a specific ideology.
Conclusion: The viral video of Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi is a deepfake. The audio, in which he allegedly 'admits' to sharing the location of an Iranian ship, is AI-generated and has been digitally overlaid onto an older, unrelated video. India has made no such official confession regarding Operation Epic Fury.
