In a chilling fusion of grief and technology, Russian families are turning to artificial intelligence to ‘resurrect’ loved ones killed in the Ukraine conflict, sparking a diplomatic row with the United Kingdom, which has condemned the practice as a new front in information warfare. The phenomenon, reported by independent Russian media outlets and confirmed by UK intelligence sources, sees mourners feeding photographs, videos, and audio recordings of the deceased into generative AI models to create interactive avatars that can simulate conversations and even deliver pre-recorded messages. The UK government has labelled the practice ‘digital necromancy’ and accused the Kremlin of orchestrating a propaganda campaign to manipulate public sentiment.
“This is a grotesque distortion of human grief,” said a Foreign Office spokesperson. “These avatars are being weaponised to justify the unjustifiable, to paint a war of aggression as a noble sacrifice.” The controversy underscores the ethical quagmire of AI in an era of hybrid warfare.
For the families, the technology offers a semblance of solace. Natalia Petrovna, a 52-year-old widow from Rostov-on-Don, lost her son Alexei in the battle for Bakhmut. Using a Russian-developed app called ‘Rodoslov’, she now converses with an AI version of him.
“It helps me hear his voice again, to feel that he is still here,” she told a local journalist. But critics argue that such applications exploit vulnerability for political ends. The UK has pointed to evidence that state-backed actors are seeding these avatars on social media, using them to amplify pro-war narratives and discredit Ukrainian accounts of Russian casualties.
The digital resurrection trend fits a broader pattern of Russia using AI for disinformation, from deepfake videos of President Zelenskyy to doctored images of alleged atrocities. However, the personalisation of propaganda makes it particularly insidious. “When an avatar of your dead son tells you his sacrifice was for a greater cause, it’s harder to question the war,” said Dr.
Elena Voronova, a psychologist specialising in digital grief at the Moscow State University, who has refused to work with the app. “The technology bypasses rational thought and speaks directly to emotion. It is a weapon of mass manipulation.
” The UK is now calling for international standards on the use of AI in memorial contexts, warning that the technology could be deployed by other regimes to rewrite historical narratives. In a statement to the United Nations, British ambassador Barbara Woodward emphasised the need for ‘digital sovereignty’ where citizens’ data and emotions cannot be hijacked by the state. Russia has dismissed the allegations, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accusing the UK of seeking to ‘monopolise grief and technology’.
As the Ukraine war enters its second year, the lines between reality and simulation are blurring. For families like the Petrovnas, the avatars offer a bridge to the dead. For the world, they represent a dark omen of how AI might shape our memories, and our wars, in the years to come.
The challenge for ethical technologists is clear: how to honour the dead without serving the power structures that sent them to their graves. In the meantime, the UK has announced sanctions against the developers of ‘Rodoslov’, escalating a conflict now fought not just on the front lines, but in the bandwidth of our collective consciousness.
