How Russia uses AI to dehumanise Ukrainians
Opinion articles and editorial commentaries on RIA Novosti often border on obvious propaganda. The Russian state-owned news agency uses them to try to convince Russians that countless enemies surround the Motherland, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is justified, and a glorious future awaits the Russian people.
From stock photos to AI generated vermin
In February 2022, one of these columns by pro-Kremlin mouthpiece Petr Akopov prematurely celebrated Russia’s victory in Ukraine and was quickly retracted. Another text by another pro-Kremlin-affiliated spin-doctor Timofey Sergeytsev called for the destruction of Ukraine as a state and the elimination of Ukrainian national identity. It was published in April 2022, on the same day the first victims of the Bucha massacre were discovered.
RIA illustrated these two texts with simple stock photos. The words, not the images, conveyed the hatred and toxicity. This changed sometime in April 2024 when RIA started generating images with AI applications. Since then, it increasingly illustrates columns about Ukraine with images of rats, mice, hyenas, pigs, clowns, or little children.
More darkness than sunshine
AI images generated by the outlet show the EU as a group of monkeys, a ship about to sink, a dying patient, starving and freezing people, and skeletons riding a burning tank. It shows the United States as a scheming Uncle Sam carving up Ukraine like a cake and the United Kingdom as a fat man in a top hat selling tanks. They show Big Ben collapsing, New York in flames, and the Reichstag building overrun by zombies.
In images showing Ukraine or its supporters, the sky is always full of dark clouds and lightning. When columnists write about Russia, the sun always shines and happy, beautiful people walk through golden fields towards a bright future. Hateful images, however, far outnumber the ‘positive’ ones.
Cheap and easy toxicity to fuel emotions
Generative AI has enabled this leading pro-Kremlin outlet to easily and cheaply visualise the toxicity of the words of its authors to increase the emotional impact of their hate speech. RIA is part of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, which, supported with large sums from the Russian state budget, has become one of the dominant players in the country.
RIA has moved far from being a traditional reporting wire service, with its content and editorial line having radicalised since February 2022. The heavier use of toxic AI images is just the latest example of RIA acting as the propaganda department of a war ministry rather than a news platform. The platform’s AI-generated images serve to breed hatred towards Ukrainians, the EU and its Member States, and other countries supporting Ukraine. See also our account of Kremlin hate speech: ‘When words kill – from Moscow to Mariupol’.
Recycled hatred
The foreign influence operations RT and Sputnik are part of the same organisation and RT regularly translates and publishes RIA columns together with the generated images on its websites in different languages. The texts and images are also recycled in other parts of the pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem.
20th century technique, 21st century technology
During the 20th century, genocidal regimes repeatedly tried to dehumanise other ethnic groups or people by depicting them as vermin. National socialist propagandists referred to Jewish people as rats. During the genocide in Rwanda, Tutsis were called cockroaches. Russian state-controlled outlets like RIA and others walk in this direction, supported by 21st-century AI technology.
Don’t be deceived.
