New Delhi: A heavenly chorus plays in the background as a soldier hugs and kisses his wife and child before walking toward the pearly gates.
AI-generated videos of dead soldiers are the latest social media trend clouding feeds in Russia. As the war with Ukraine reaches its fourth year, bereaved families are paying for AI-generated videos that “resurrect” loved ones.
Soldiers can be seen hugging their families before leaving them for heaven, while others show a winged soldier come down to Earth to hug their loved ones for one last time.
These hot-selling videos can be bought for 200 roubles, the cheapest version, to 10,000 roubles for urgent orders, reported The Times. AI-generated songs can also be ordered for 5,000 roubles.
The Times also found that some generators of such AI videos are able to earn almost 2,000 roubles a month, twice the average salary in Russia.
However, BBC News Russia estimates that the production cost of these videos is often 30 roubles or less.
Such “farewell” videos have been slowly taking over the internet since 2025. Whereas videos bidding farewell or remembering celebrities are fairly common and popular across Instagram. Reanimation has increasingly become an emerging coping mechanism.
The University of Southern California also offers an interactive session with holocaust survivors, most of whom have passed away since, based on pre-recorded testimonies and interviews.
“Dimensions in Testimony enables people to ask questions that prompt real-time responses,” read the USC Shoah Foundation website.
In 2024, a video of M Karunanidhi, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, went viral across social media. The writer turned politician, who died in 2018 due to age-related illness, in an AI-generated video congratulated fellow politician TR Baalu on the launch of his autobiographical book.
How does it impact the mind?
Although this “grief tech” has slowly gained popularity across media, the psychological effects of its use remain uncertain.
In some cases, such AI-generated videos can offer comfort and closure. For others, it might prolong grief, create confusion and feelings of derealisation.
A 2025 study titled “From Mourning to Manipulation: Navigating the Psychological Terrain of AI Grief Therapy” explores how deepfakes can often worsen emotional dependence and prevent healthy psychological closure.
The study also highlights how relying on an AI model to replicate a real person can introduce fabricated behaviours, false responses, or altered characteristics, which can warp memories.