In a disquieting fusion of grief and technology, Russian families are turning to artificial intelligence to create digital avatars of soldiers killed in Ukraine. These AI ‘resurrections’ are then weaponised by state media to bolster support for the war, raising profound ethical questions about digital sovereignty and the manipulation of mourning.
The practice, known as ‘digital necromancy’ among tech ethicists, involves feeding photographs, voice recordings and social media data into generative AI models. The result is a synthetic recreation of the deceased that can converse, move and even offer platitudes about the ‘special military operation’. One such avatar, shared widely on Russian state television, showed a soldier telling his mother: ‘Do not cry, Mama. I died for a just cause.’
For families, the initial appeal is understandable. Grieving relatives seek comfort in hearing a loved one’s voice again. But the Kremlin has co-opted these digital ghosts, using them as propaganda tools to reinforce the narrative of sacrifice and duty. The avatars are featured on news programmes, in school lessons and on social media, often with explicit endorsements from officials.
‘This is exploitation dressed as innovation,’ warns Dr Elena Volkov, a Moscow-based psychologist specialising in trauma. ‘Families are being manipulated in their most vulnerable state. The state is privatising grief for political ends.’
The technology itself is not new. Deepfakes and voice cloning have existed for years. But this marks the first systematic deployment for propagandistic purposes in an active conflict. Russia’s digital development ministry has funded several projects, including one called ‘Memory Guardian’, which allows relatives to interact with a chatbot version of the fallen soldier.
Critics argue this crosses a red line. ‘We are seeing the weaponisation of digital identity,’ says Silicon Valley ethicist Maria Frolova, formerly of Google’s AI ethics board. ‘Once you create an AI replica, you lose control over how it is used. The state can put words in a dead person’s mouth. This is a Black Mirror scenario.’
There are also concerns about consent. Soldiers did not agree to be resurrected as chatbots. Their data is often taken from military databases or social media accounts without explicit permission. Digital sovereignty vanishes in death.
The implications extend beyond Russia. As AI becomes cheaper and more accessible, other governments may adopt similar tactics. China’s social credit system already uses AI for surveillance; Egypt has experimented with virtual reality tours of war memorials. The line between commemoration and propaganda grows thin.
For now, Russian families are caught in a strange limbo. Some accept the AI avatars as a form of closure. Others feel a deep unease, seeing their loved ones hijacked by a state machine. ‘My son is not a puppet,’ one mother told an independent journalist. ‘I want to remember him as he was, not as some digital doll reciting Kremlin slogans.’
What happens when the war ends? The avatars will likely persist, frozen in a state of eternal martyrdom. Future generations may interact with uncanny facsimiles, never knowing the real person. Memory itself becomes a battlefield.
This story is still developing. But one thing is clear: AI has opened a new front in information warfare, one that commodifies the dead to control the living. The user experience of society just got darker.
