Rousing orchestral music plays over a video of a snowy Moscow street dotted with billboards celebrating an end to the war in Ukraine.
“The Special Military Operation is over,” one fictional billboard reads, using the Kremlin-approved term for its war on Ukraine. “Our heroes are coming home.”
Underneath, a beautiful, airbrushed woman pushing a stroller turns to see a man in military uniform and throws her arms around his neck in tears.
The 15-second AI-generated clip was posted on Instagram by a popular blogger with the online name Katya Jin, and the couple appear to be modelled on her and her husband.
In reality, like tens of thousands Russian soldiers, he disappeared at the front. His fate remains unknown.
AI-generated photos and videos featuring Russian soldiers have gained popularity on social media since mid-2025. They are most often posted by relatives of Russian servicemen fighting in Ukraine.
In nearly all of them, the soldiers are controversially portrayed as heroes defending their country and loved ones.
Ukraine and the destruction caused by Russia’s invasion is usually absent, and judging by reaction online many Ukrainians who have seen the videos have been appalled.
For some grieving families, AI content provides a way to mourn their loved ones; in some cases, deepfakes featuring deceased people are used at funerals.
Responses online to such clips are sharply divided: some say they were brought to tears, while others see the practice as unethical and deeply disturbing.
Very little is yet known about the long-term psychological and social impact of this technology on the grieving process, says Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska, a researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge.
“Creating ‘deadbots’ of Russian soldiers or deepfakes of fallen Russian soldiers returning from Ukraine is extremely complex and ethically difficult to assess in a clear-cut way,” she says.
BBC Russian approached Katya Jin for comment, but she did not respond to our questions. Whether by coincidence or not, after we first reported her story, she removed her AI-generated content from Instagram and TikTok.
Until recently, she regularly posted AI videos to her 10 million TikTok followers and 50,000 Instagram followers, often alongside tutorials explaining how to make them.
Her own family’s story became part of the sales pitch, and viewers could then order similar videos featuring their own loved ones.
Dozens of people said they wanted the same kind of content featuring deceased relatives. They just needed to submit photographs of themselves and their loved ones, and AI would then animate the material following specific prompts.
A couple can be shown in a specific setting or pose, and cinematic flair can then be added to the fake image. Heartfelt farewell letters can also be mocked up and placed in the hands of a deceased relative.
Many of the videos focus on soldiers killed at the front – a subject Russian authorities generally try not to draw attention to.
Usually these clips follow a set pattern: a man in uniform embraces his loved ones, then slowly walks up a staircase into a blue sky, often surrounded by angels. In others, the “ghost” of the dead soldier appears to embrace his family from heaven.
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