Screenshots of Anzhalika Melnikava in a gym in Minsk are circulating

Alleged screenshots from stories featuring Anzhalika Melnikava are very likely deepfakes

Ukrainian blogger Oleksandr Rykov (BalaganOFF) stated that he was sent screenshots from the stories of a trainer from the GYM24 gym chain in Minsk, which allegedly featured Anzhalika Melnikava, who disappeared from public view in March 2025.

BalaganOFF wrote that he hesitated for two days before publishing the screenshots because he didn't know if they were real or not.

"An account sent me these photos, saying 'look – it seems to be Melnikava, very similar.' This account had never written to me before, so I hesitated, but ultimately decided to publish," BalaganOFF told Nasha Niva. "I don't have the video, but I'll ask that account for you, maybe they saved it."

BalaganOFF does not know why he specifically was sent the screenshots. "Maybe because I'm Ukrainian and I definitely won't betray him," he speculates.

Analysis of the screenshots using artificial intelligence tools, however, shows that the face in the photos differs in quality in terms of compression from the rest of the image. This could be a mask superimposed over the image.

We compared the face area with adjacent frame sections: in all three screenshots, the color variability in the face area ranges from 219 to 525, and around it from 1623 to 3484 respectively, indicating a locally smoothed or blurred area.

Another sign of manipulation is traces of local processing after repeated JPEG compression: in the face area, they are slightly higher than the image average, which often occurs where something has been added, blurred, or inserted over the original. The face differs significantly from the rest of the photograph in terms of detail, color structure, and editing marks.

If an image section is simultaneously too uniform in color, poor in texture, and slightly stands out in terms of compression marks, this is a typical profile of local digital processing, not a normally photographed face.

"My technical analysis shows that the face in the original frames is intentionally obscured by digital blurring or a uniform filter, as abnormally low detail and color variability are recorded in this area compared to the rest of the image. Because of this artificial 'mask,' real facial features are practically invisible, so recognition programs will erroneously show a high percentage of matches, relying only on the general outline of the head, neck, and hairstyle," GPT 5.4 Thinking concluded based on the available information.

It is difficult to say more at this point. For a definitive answer, the primary video needs to be analyzed, but it is not available.

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Anzhalika Melnikava, spokeswoman for the Coordination Council, left Poland and the European Union on February 26, 2025, and flew to London. According to investigators, a day before her departure, she reserved a room in a five-star hotel in Sri Lanka, where she had stayed before. From February 28 to March 7, Melnikava lived in that hotel with her children. On March 7, Melnikava and her children flew to Dubai, where her trail is lost. On March 25, she stopped making contact.

The Coordination Council stated that on March 13, documents related to the organization's work were downloaded from her account.

In the same month, according to "Cyberpartisans," Melnikava transferred over 150,000 dollars from the Białoruś Liberty fund to her personal account. It is also known that before her disappearance, she flew to Cuba and Sri Lanka with Aliaksei Labeyeu, an employee of Lukashenka's special services.

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Clarification. In the initial version of the article, "ChatGPT Thinking 4.6" was mistakenly written instead of "GPT 5.4 Thinking." We apologize for the error.

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