Picture this: a middle-aged man in uniform holding a woman’s hand, then hugging the two children beside her. After saying goodbye, he walks up marble steps into the clouds, beneath a giant fluttering Russian tricolour.
This is not a fever dream, but a common script for AI-generated farewell videos flooding Russian social media (like this one or this one). The scenarios vary: soldiers float among the clouds, rise from the ground, or soar upward on angelic wings. The men depicted in these videos are real people who died in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
These digital memorials have been spreading since mid-2025. Relatives of fallen soldiers post them on social media or share them in group chats with family and friends as a way to cope with grief and stress.
But for some, it's become a business. Aliyana started making AI farewell videos after her brother died fighting in Ukraine, the Russian BBC service reported. At first, she helped friends create similar videos. As more and more people showed interest, Aliyana launched a small online business for AI-generated memorial content.
Soon, farewell videos became her main source of income. According to the BBC, Aliyana wrote on her private blog that she earned more than €600 a day. At one point, she even hired two managers to help her handle orders.
The BBC has not disclosed Aliyana's identity, but TEC identified the woman as Aliya Yanberdina, a model from Ufa, Bashkortostan. On Instagram, where she has more than 21,000 followers, she posts AI-generated beauty models and sells courses on creating AI-generated content.
She also runs a separate account called ”Revived Memory”, where she shares farewell videos of fallen soldiers that she creates herself.
Aliyana is far from the only one in this new business. Numerous advertisements on Russian social media offer AI-generated farewell videos and memorial cards.
Prices range from 1,500 to 15,000 roubles (€12 to €100) depending on the quality of the original photo, the storyline, the number of people featured, and whether the deceased person’s voice is included.
As the AI farewell industry in Russia has become increasingly competitive over the past year, some have gone further, selling not only videos but also courses teaching others how to make their own.
This trend is part of the broader so-called “grief tech” industry, which uses technology to preserve memory and help people process loss. Similar videos are also spreading on Ukrainian social media, suggesting that AI-generated memorials are becoming a feature of mourning in countries affected by war.