ISW writes that such recordings show fighters from at least 10 regiments and brigades, and the total number of fakes may be higher because of the limitations of AI-detection software. According to the institute, Russian military personnel are increasingly using generated or edited clips to claim control over areas they have not actually captured.
Previously, according to ISW, the method used for such claims was infiltration: one or two fighters would go into no-man’s-land or territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a Russian flag. Open-source analysts could geolocate such footage, but now, the institute says, it is enough to insert soldiers with flags into a video already tied to a location, even if they were not there.
As an example, ISW cites a video by military blogger DIVGEN dated July 27. It claimed that fighters from the 3rd Motor Rifle Battalion of the 127th Regiment and Storm-V units had completed the capture of the village of Belyi Kolodez in Kharkiv Oblast, and analysts say the fake was exposed by the implausible proportions of the serviceman’s body and his “disappearance” from the bushes as the drone camera pulled away.
Another example is a recording from the Telegram channel “Southern Front” dated August 20 about the supposedly “liberated” Nikolaypole in Donetsk Oblast. ISW notes that in the video the Russian flag appears to grow out of the roof of a house and then dissolve into it.
The institute also linked such fakes to claims about the capture of Sviatohirsk in early September made by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Ministry of Defense. Ukrainian Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the 3rd Army Corps, published a video address from the center of Sviatohirsk, while the city itself, according to ISW, is in the rear of Ukrainian forces.
ISW also cites criticism from pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. “Military Informant” published two videos that were supposed to confirm the “liberation” of Sviatohirsk, but, according to it, were generated by a neural network. “Rybar” wrote that false reports and AI videos can create a mistaken situation for operations in neighboring sectors.
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