A deeply emotional video, showing a young man in tears claiming he is being forcibly sent to the front lines in Ukraine, has been exposed as a sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) fake. An investigation by DW reveals the clip is part of a disinformation campaign, using the face of a Russian streamer to push false narratives about Ukraine's military mobilization.
The Viral Video and Its False Claim
The video, which spread like wildfire across social media, features what appears to be a young Ukrainian soldier. Choking back tears in the back of a military vehicle, he pleads, "I've been mobilized, I'm heading to Chasiv Yar... Help me, I don't want to die. I'm only 23. Please help me." This powerful imagery was used to support the claim that Ukraine is drafting 23-year-old men against their will to replace battlefield losses.
DW's fact-check confirms this claim is false. The video was shared hundreds of times in over a dozen languages, amassing millions of views. One post on a Hungarian X account alone garnered over 1.8 million views. However, the core message is built on a lie. Ukraine's conscription age was lowered from 27 to 25 in April 2024, but it was never reduced to 23.
Unmasking the AI Deception and Its Source
Beyond the factual inaccuracy, the video itself is a fabrication. A reverse image search using screenshots and visual analysis uncovered clear signs of AI generation. A poorly-fitting helmet, inconsistent with standard Ukrainian military equipment, was a major giveaway. Further investigation identified the face in the video as Vladimir Yuryevich Ivanov, a young Russian streamer from St. Petersburg who uses the online pseudonym Kussia88.
The investigation traced the video's origins to a now-deleted TikTok channel, @fantomoko. This account hosted dozens of similar AI-generated clips, all depicting crying soldiers in military vehicles. While most had a few thousand views, several went massively viral, with one clip exceeding 2.1 million views. Some videos even featured the watermark "Sora," OpenAI's image generator.
Another face repeatedly used in videos from the same account belonged to Aleksei Gubanov, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Gubanov, now based in New York, told DW he has "absolutely no connection" to the clips and condemned their use for propaganda.
The Man Behind the Mask: Who is Kussia88?
The pseudonym Kussia88 is laden with extremist symbolism. In Russian, "kussia" (каша) means porridge. However, the use of "88" is a well-known neo-Nazi code for "Heil Hitler," and the double "SS" in the Latin transcription is no accident. The "IA" is also significant in international neo-Nazi circles, where it represents the number 14, a reference to the "14 words" white supremacist slogan.
Ivanov's online presence includes these codes in his profile URLs. His Twitch account, with over 1.3 million followers, has faced temporary bans. When confronted with the AI videos and being labeled a "pro-Putin Nazi," Ivanov responded sarcastically on his Telegram channel, dismissing the controversy.
Regardless of his personal involvement or views, the fact remains: the viral videos are entirely fake. They represent a dangerous new frontier in digital disinformation, using AI to create emotionally manipulative content that serves specific propaganda narratives.
