Struggling on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Kremlin has turned to a new weapon: an army of AI-generated Polish and Ukrainian deepfake soldiers spreading targeted propaganda across social media. While Moscow relies on fake AI troops to cover up massive casualty rates and exaggerated territorial gains, Ukraine is using real battlefield AI to revolutionize tactical drone strikes and combat planning.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Uses AI Propaganda to Hide Ukraine Failures
01:20 - Russian Bot Farms Target Poland with Deepfake Videos
02:45 - Kremlin Disinformation Exploits Poland Ukraine Tensions
04:10 - Why 57 Percent of Viewers Fall for Deepfakes
05:25 - Russian Army Casualties Reach 39,490 Troops in June
06:40 - Russia Uses TikTok Bot Networks Against Ukrainian Soldiers
08:00 - Molfar Intelligence Reveals How to Spot Deepfakes
09:15 - Ukraine Uses AI Drones and Battlefield Systems
10:35 - ISW Proves Russia Seized Only 81 Square Kilometers
12:00 - Inside Putin Bunker Isolation and Kremlin Propaganda
13:15 - Is Russia About to Lose Crimea to Ukraine?
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/JKfu1svh
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Uses AI Propaganda to Hide Ukraine Failures
01:20 - Russian Bot Farms Target Poland with Deepfake Videos
02:45 - Kremlin Disinformation Exploits Poland Ukraine Tensions
04:10 - Why 57 Percent of Viewers Fall for Deepfakes
05:25 - Russian Army Casualties Reach 39,490 Troops in June
06:40 - Russia Uses TikTok Bot Networks Against Ukrainian Soldiers
08:00 - Molfar Intelligence Reveals How to Spot Deepfakes
09:15 - Ukraine Uses AI Drones and Battlefield Systems
10:35 - ISW Proves Russia Seized Only 81 Square Kilometers
12:00 - Inside Putin Bunker Isolation and Kremlin Propaganda
13:15 - Is Russia About to Lose Crimea to Ukraine?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/JKfu1svh
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NewsTranscript
00:00If you listen to Russian propaganda, you'll hear of a Ukraine war that is going precisely to plan.
00:06Russia's soldiers are rampaging through Ukraine, the Kremlin will tell you.
00:10The Donbass is on the verge of falling, and every drone that Ukraine launches into Russia
00:14is taken out by a world-class air defense system. It's only a matter of time before Ukraine falls.
00:21It's been a matter of time for four and a half years now.
00:26And digging beneath the stories the Kremlin tells reveals a very different reality.
00:31Russia is winning, alright. It's created the perfect soldiers, and they're scoring big victories.
00:36But there's just one problem. None of it exists.
00:39Russia's only winning army is a fake.
00:42Putin is lying to you and his own people, and he's using AI to do it.
00:46If you've been doom-scrolling military content recently, you may have seen some interesting videos.
00:50Clips of interviews with military men claiming to be part of Poland's army have been spreading,
00:56showing these soldiers railing against Ukraine.
00:59There are claims of high levels of crime among refugees who have escaped Ukraine and now live in Poland.
01:05The soldiers also attacked the Polish government, Germany and the European Union or EU,
01:09with claims suggesting that Poland is well on its way to rejecting Ukraine, the EU,
01:14and frankly everything that the country has fought to become part of ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
01:19But none of it is real.
01:20The news broke on July 21st.
01:22As its army fails to gain any significant ground in Ukraine,
01:26Russia has turned to outright lies in a desperate attempt to create discord and discontent inside Ukraine.
01:32Russia isn't relying on fake versions of its own soldiers for these lies.
01:36Those soldiers are too busy dying in Ukraine.
01:38Instead, Russia has created AI deepfakes of Polish soldiers,
01:42which it's then manipulating into criticizing Ukraine and its army.
01:46Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation revealed the Russian fakery in a mind-blowing report
01:51that showcases just how far Russia is willing to go in its desperate attempts to win the propaganda battle.
01:57The center says,
01:58It's analysis has shown that all of these soldiers are completely AI-generated characters.
02:03It's also worth noting that the visual style and content delivery mechanisms are identical to those used by Russian AI
02:09bot farms.
02:10The clips, which all show men in Polish military uniforms, have been circulating on several social media platforms,
02:17including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok.
02:20However, close examination of the videos shows several signs of manipulation,
02:24including several of the faces being far smoother than they should be.
02:27Other signs come from the words used in the videos.
02:31Poland's NASK State Research Institute has also been looking into the videos,
02:35and it says that some of the language used indicates awkward phrasing of the Polish language,
02:40suggesting translation from the original Russian text that was written for the statements.
02:44There are also stray Cyrillic characters thrown into the mix.
02:47Then there are the uniforms.
02:49Despite it being relatively easy to find pictures of Polish soldiers in their uniforms,
02:53it appears that Russia didn't even bother.
02:55The uniforms seen in the clips seem to be amalgamations of Russian and Belarusian military wear rather than Polish.
03:02Russia is banking on people not paying attention or simply not knowing enough to spot the signs,
03:07and it's working.
03:08One YouTube channel alone has posted about 50 of these clips,
03:11the top performing of which has reached 300,000 views, Polsky Radio reports.
03:17Other videos, including one generated back in October,
03:20that claim to show Polish soldiers calling for the seizure of the Ukrainian city of Lviv,
03:24have already been easily debunked because of a visible watermark from the AI model VO that is seen on the
03:30video.
03:30This is dirty from Russia.
03:33Insidious.
03:33But it also isn't surprising.
03:35The Kremlin knows that it can't really claim that the Russian army is doing well in Ukraine.
03:39It tries, but the reality is clear for everybody to see on the ground.
03:43So Russia has created a fake army, filled with non-existent Polish soldiers,
03:48to score propaganda points against Ukraine and attempt to convince the world that a key ally has turned its back.
03:54Why Polish soldiers?
03:56Though Ukraine and Poland are still allies,
03:58there is tension between the two countries on which Russia has pounced.
04:01Earlier in 2026, a rift started to form between Poland and Ukraine.
04:07Poland's president, Karol Nowrowski,
04:09even stripped Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky,
04:12of the Order of the White Eagle, which is Poland's highest state honor.
04:15That happened as a result of Zelensky approving the naming of the Ukrainian military unit as the UPA,
04:21which stands for the Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
04:25Many in Poland took that as an insult.
04:27There are historical tensions surrounding the UPA name,
04:30as a group with this name took part in the killing of 100,000 Polish people in Volodymyr,
04:36in eastern Galicia, during World War II.
04:38Poland classifies this as a genocide,
04:40and the naming of a Ukrainian unit after this group was a step too far for one of Ukraine's staunchest
04:45supporters.
04:46Russia has seized the opportunity to have its AI-generated Polish soldiers
04:50to bring it up in many of the clips that have surfaced on social media.
04:54Despite the obvious conflict, Poland and Ukraine are still allies.
04:58On June 25, the BBC reported that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk
05:02called for truth and mutual respect during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdansk.
05:07But there are still signs of tension.
05:10Zelensky skipped this iteration of the event,
05:12choosing instead to send Prime Minister Julius Verdenko.
05:15However, Zelensky has said that Ukraine would
05:17remain open to all meaningful formats of engagement with Poland
05:21in order to try to avoid conflicting interpretations
05:23of the difficult and painful chapters of our shared past,
05:26adding that he was
05:28grateful to the Polish people for their support and cooperation.
05:32Russia's propagandists were like moths to flames after seeing all of this unfold,
05:36and they've been flooding the internet in an attempt to create more division ever since.
05:40The Kremlin obviously thinks it's being clever here.
05:43Even such obviously fake videos can have an impact,
05:46as many simply don't question whether what they're watching is real or not.
05:49Others simply can't tell.
05:51TechRadar revealed that in a January 2026 piece,
05:54where it reported on a study conducted by AI video company Runway.
05:58Quizzing 1,000 participants,
06:00Runway discovered that the volunteers were only able to correctly identify
06:03whether a video was real or AI 57.1% of the time.
06:08That's barely better than a coin toss,
06:10and it shows how easily Russia can get away with manipulating the minds of people
06:14who are perhaps only half paying attention when they watch these kinds of clips on social media.
06:19The Kremlin doesn't need people watching these videos.
06:22It wants them listening to the fake messages.
06:25In fact, Russia needs them listening because it knows that exposing the reality of what's happening in Ukraine
06:29would be a disaster.
06:30Russia's new fake army is getting views and influencing opinions,
06:35but its real army is failing massively.
06:38Stalled in Donetsk and losing ground elsewhere,
06:41Russia's soldiers are dying in droves.
06:43Russia is losing between 1,000 and 1,500 soldiers every day,
06:48and the numbers keep on climbing.
06:50In June, Russia lost 39,490 of its troops,
06:54and according to Al Jazeera,
06:56it's struggling to make up the numbers
06:58as it recruits between 24,000 and 30,000 contract soldiers monthly.
07:02This is the reality that Russia doesn't want you to see.
07:05An army that is failing in Ukraine and death on an unimaginable scale.
07:10So Russia creates fake Polish soldiers
07:12wearing hybrid Russian and Belarusian fatigues
07:15to badmouth Ukraine, Poland, and the EU
07:17in language that is clearly translated from Russian text.
07:21And the fakery gets worse.
07:22What we're seeing here is far from an isolated incident.
07:26It's part of a much bigger campaign of disinformation
07:28that Russia has relied on
07:30to conceal the reality of Ukraine for years.
07:33It's also not just Poles who are being deepfaked.
07:36Ukrainian soldiers have experienced the same treatment.
07:39This is exactly the kind of thing
07:41that we cover here on The Military Show.
07:42We give you insight into the reality of Russia's invasion.
07:46If you like what you see and want to see more,
07:47the subscription and notification buttons are just a kick away.
07:52Beyond the fake Polish soldiers,
07:54Russia is also creating videos that see nonsense
07:56spouted from the mouths of AI-generated Ukrainian soldiers.
08:00Euromiden Press reported on this phenomenon on July 4th,
08:03noting that Russia is flooding social media feeds
08:05with videos of fake Ukrainian soldiers and authority figures,
08:08including rabbis,
08:10which it's using to spread disinformation throughout Ukraine.
08:13These fake videos have different messages
08:15from the ones discussed before.
08:16They're designed to turn the Ukrainian people against their leadership.
08:19Those people are being sent to die in a war,
08:22the AI-generated soldiers claim,
08:24and also that politicians can enrich themselves
08:26by buying villas and other expensive items.
08:29One of these videos received around 900,000 views,
08:32the outlet reports.
08:33Can they give Ukraine a serious problem?
08:35An AI-generated video can go viral and spread like wildfire
08:39in a matter of minutes on social media.
08:42Fact-checking videos are reactive,
08:44often taking several hours to get online,
08:46and don't engage as well because they aren't as inflammatory.
08:50The disinformation age is upon us,
08:52and Russia loves it.
08:53It's been loving it for years.
08:55These videos are just small parts of entire bot networks
08:58of social media accounts
08:59that have been running fake videos for years.
09:01For instance, August 2024 saw the Ukrainian media outlet Texty
09:05run an investigation on a TikTok network
09:08containing 2,000 accounts,
09:09all of which were fake,
09:11all sharing anti-mobilization hashtags.
09:13There is also documentation of AI-generated videos
09:16of Ukrainian soldiers supposedly surrendering to Russian forces
09:19in places like Pokrovsk,
09:21all designed to convince Ukrainian people
09:23that their country is losing the war against Russia.
09:26What has changed in 2026 is the nature of these videos.
09:29In the past, Russia has used AI content
09:32to spread fake videos involving AI-generated people
09:35that have no real authority.
09:37That's not what we're seeing in 2026.
09:39Whether through the advancement of AI
09:41or Russia getting a better grip on the tech that it's using,
09:44this new wave of videos focuses on supposed authority figures.
09:48Soldiers, military leaders,
09:49and others claiming to be religious or political figures
09:52are now delivering the messages that Russia wants to send.
09:56Again, none of it is real.
09:57That doesn't matter.
09:58If a fake video goes viral,
10:00it takes days to undo the damage,
10:02assuming that viewers even bother to look beyond
10:04what they've seen in the first place.
10:06The Molfar Intelligence Institute
10:08has delivered a list of what to look out for
10:10if you're unsure if you're watching AI-generated content or not.
10:14Visual defects such as the uncanny valley effect on faces
10:17caused by irregular blinking,
10:19the absence of micro-expressions,
10:21which are clearly lacking in the fake Polish soldier videos,
10:24and sound desynchronization are all clues.
10:27So are source anonymity and the same video suddenly appearing across dozens of accounts within minutes.
10:33Check the accounts too, the institute says.
10:35If they're new or contain nothing but the same types of videos,
10:38that's a pretty good indicator that you're looking at a bot farm.
10:42Hundreds or thousands of likes,
10:43often accompanied by generic comments within the first few minutes and hours of a video going live,
10:48could also serve as clues.
10:49Russia is betting that most won't follow these steps.
10:53That's why it engages in this type of fakery.
10:56What's striking here is the differences that are becoming increasingly apparent
10:59in how Russia uses AI versus Ukraine's use of the technology.
11:04Russia creates fake AI-generated armies of people spreading false messages across social media.
11:09It's all about disinformation for Russia.
11:12Russia knows that it can't compete with Ukraine when it comes to tangible military applications of using AI
11:17to actually win a war.
11:19Ukraine is miles ahead of Russia when it comes to using AI to carry out its strikes.
11:23We see that in the middle strike campaign Ukraine has used to destroy the Russian near-rear for much of
11:282026.
11:29That campaign uses AI-enabled drones capable of autonomously detecting and striking targets behind the front.
11:35One of the standouts is the Hornet drone that has a 300-kilometer range
11:40and uses AI to guide itself towards targets,
11:43making it incredibly difficult to stop using electronic warfare countermeasure.
11:47We've also seen Ukraine use AI in other interesting ways.
11:51On July 23rd, United24 Media reported on Marichka.
11:55This is an AI-infused battlefield planning system
11:59that is designed to reduce the time taken to make important battlefield decisions.
12:03With this system, Ukraine can take the time needed to make such decisions
12:06down from up to 12 hours to as little as a few minutes,
12:09all because the AI is capable of analyzing and reporting on dozens of documents in seconds.
12:15In the past, human commanders would have needed hours to sift through these documents.
12:19In a war that is as fast-moving as the one waged in Ukraine,
12:22that delay could be the difference between carrying out a successful strike on a Russian target
12:26and losing that target because it's gone into hiding.
12:29There is a very interesting contrast at play here.
12:33Ukraine uses AI to get battlefield results,
12:35while Russia uses it to create fake soldiers and videos designed to trick the minds of people
12:40who aren't paying as much attention as they should.
12:43The fakery doesn't stop at AI-generated video.
12:46Seeing how well Ukraine is doing on the battlefield,
12:49Russia has resorted to lying through its collective teeth about what's happening on the ground.
12:53In its July 22nd assessment of Russia's invasion,
12:57the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW,
12:59reported that Russia is continuing to make maximalist demands for peace,
13:03including the seeding of the Donbass.
13:05Russia backs those claims with reports of territory taken that at best can be described as exaggerated.
13:12At worst, outright lies.
13:14The Russian MOD amplified a Russian propaganda telegram channel on July 22nd,
13:19claiming that Russian forces seized 2,226 square kilometers of territory in the first six months of 2026.
13:28ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces seized a net total of only 81.1 square kilometers thus
13:36far in 2026,
13:38due in part to a significant Ukrainian spring-summer 2026 counter-offensive,
13:42and seized or infiltrated 626.85 square kilometers thus far in 2026, the ISW reports.
13:50Over 2,100 square kilometers of claimed territory not being in Russian hands is a pretty major exaggeration.
13:57And it's one that Russia has doubled down on,
14:00with its claims that its forces have overrun the fortress-belt city of Konstantinivka.
14:04Those claims started circulating in early July,
14:06and were immediately refuted by Ukraine's general staff.
14:09Ukraine continues to hold its positions in the city, the general staff says.
14:14CNN says that independent mapping sources and video testimonials from Ukrainian soldiers also prove the claim false.
14:21What Russia actually seems to be doing is sending infiltrators into the city,
14:25having them wave flags for videos and then run back into their hidey holes,
14:28where they await imminent detection by Ukraine's drones.
14:31It's all lies and propaganda, just like the AI videos.
14:35But then that's the Russian way.
14:37Lies are Russia's real weapon of mass destruction, and they have been wielded like that for decades.
14:42The irony in all of this is that Putin himself may be as much of a victim of these lies
14:47as anybody else.
14:48Russia's leader has a long history of distorting the truth,
14:51perhaps now to the point where he can't even see the reality of the false version he's created for himself.
14:55This is the man who still calls a war that is getting close to five years long, a special military
15:01operation.
15:02He will parrot the words of his sycophant generals when they tell him that Russia is making massive gains,
15:07and he won't even question why Donetsk hasn't fallen yet given those gains.
15:11Putin falls for his own propaganda constant.
15:14He did it when he invaded Ukraine.
15:15Those he employs to tell tall tales for him said that Ukraine was weak and ripe for the taking.
15:22Putin thought Russia's almighty military would need just days to win.
15:26We've seen how that worked out.
15:28Putin may lie shamelessly and constantly,
15:30but that has just led him to create a world around himself where the truth is impossible to determine.
15:35Today, Putin is a man who seems intent on surrounding himself with nothing but his delusions.
15:41In May, Forbes reported that Putin spends most of his time moving between underground bunkers,
15:46surrounded by security personnel under strict orders to check everything and everybody who comes near.
15:52He doesn't know reality.
15:53He hasn't seen it in a very long time.
15:56The hilarious irony in all of this is that Putin himself would likely be tricked into thinking
16:00that the AI-generated videos of fake Poles and Ukrainians were real if he watched them.
16:05We can't even know for sure that Putin ordered the creation of these videos.
16:08Perhaps he has no idea that they even exist.
16:11But coming back to those videos, they are of course evidence that Russia continues to lie.
16:16But they're also signs of desperation.
16:18Of Russia trying to create a la-la land of its own making
16:22to distract from the dismal performance of its troops in Ukraine.
16:25Russia needs people to fall for the message because actually paying attention unravels the lies in a heartbeat.
16:31Don't fall for it.
16:32Russia is led by a man who surrounds himself with toadies and purposefully detaches himself from reality.
16:38What we see spreading on social media right now is just another example.
16:42Russia can't win in Ukraine with its real arm.
16:45The only victories it's scoring now are with an army of robots and fake soldiers that don't exist.
16:50How about this for a dose of reality, Russia?
16:52You're on the verge of losing Crimea as a result of a brilliant Ukrainian isolation campaign
16:57that shows just how effective AI can be when used for fighting rather than fake videos.
17:03What was once Putin's greatest geopolitical victory has been turned into a burden on all of Russia.
17:08And you can find out how Ukraine did it by watching our video.
17:12And if you enjoyed this video, we have plenty more coming up at The Military Show.
17:15Hit subscribe and ring the notification bell to ensure that you're among the first to see our latest analysis of
17:21the Ukraine war.
17:22And thank you for watching.