A man in a gleaming silver wedding suit presses his lips softly to his bride’s. In the next frame, he is clad in military fatigues, climbing a white, curved stairway into the clouds as he waves goodbye. The video, however, is not real. The man in it, a Russian army officer, was killed on the Ukrainian front lines in the summer of 2022. What appears to be his final farewell is in fact a digital apparition, generated at the request of his wife by an AI editor using wedding photos and images of him in uniform.
Across Russia, artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to grant the deceased a haunting kind of second life. Social media platforms are filled with short videos of loved ones—children, spouses, parents—resurrected for brief, lifelike moments: eyes blinking, lips moving, arms locked in an embrace that never actually happened. While the phenomenon of “digital resurrection” gained attention this summer in English-speaking corners of the internet, in Russia it carries a darker resonance. The service is particularly popular among wives and mothers of soldiers killed during the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The videos have sparked backlash from Ukrainians, who view them as glorifying the very conflict that has taken the lives of countless civilians and soldiers. For roughly $30, grieving relatives can submit a photograph through a Telegram bot or VKontakte, Russia’s social media platform, and receive a short animated clip. For an additional $30, the deceased can even “speak” through an AI-generated voice simulation, reciting scripted farewells.
Yelena Kirghizova, widow of the officer featured in one such video, described the AI-made clip as a form of closure. In an obituary accompanying the video, she explained that her husband’s body was never returned—a problem that has long plagued the Russian army. “For a long time, everything was shrouded in mystery. His body was never returned to us, there was no funeral, no opportunity to say goodbye,” she wrote. She recalled her son providing DNA samples twice in hopes of identifying remains recovered from the battlefield. “His death was painful, but dignified,” she added, reflecting on the confirmation she eventually received from his comrades.
The trend was popularized by Anna Korableva, founder of a VKontakte page called “Final Meeting.” Initially experimenting with AI to insert people into childhood photos, she received a message last spring requesting an animation of a woman embracing her brother killed in the war. Korableva created the clip free of charge, posting it to her page, and it quickly went viral. Within weeks, orders flooded in by the hundreds, with some days seeing as many as 500 requests.
Each video takes roughly two days to complete, Korableva said, as she interviews clients and enhances low-quality photos. The emotional toll is heavy, she explained, compounded by the frequent hate messages she receives online. “People usually don’t value what they have in life enough… From the feedback I get, they feel lighter when they see it on video, they get to talk one more time,” she said. Most videos depict a soldier embracing loved ones before ascending to heaven, often accompanied by a popular ballad, while additional features like angel wings or transformation into birds are offered as optional effects.
While most requests come from families of fallen soldiers, the AI resurrection service is not limited to them. Pet owners and those mourning elderly relatives have also commissioned clips. One viral Instagram video featured a Russian influencer who used black-and-white photos of her 86-year-old grandmother to digitally reunite her with lost family members, generating a mini-film with over 13 million views using Western AI models including GPT-5, Claude, and Google Gemini.
The use of AI for “resurrection videos” has divided audiences. Some find the results eerie and unsettling, while others compare them to virtual séances or prayers that bring comfort. Korableva defends the practice, emphasizing its therapeutic potential: “I think AI is a powerful tool and it’s important to use it responsibly and for good… if these videos help someone, it’s worth doing,” she said. The Washington Post has reported extensively on this growing phenomenon, highlighting both its emotional appeal and the ethical questions it raises in the age of AI-driven mourning.
