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.

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