Associated Incidents
Russian Telegram channels are circulating a video featuring the commander of the Third Army Corps, Andrii Biletskyi. In the video, he allegedly claims to have been present during the transfer of fallen soldiers' bodies and states that the Ukrainian authorities deliberately avoid identifying the bodies to avoid paying compensation to the soldiers' families.
This is fake news. Biletskyi has never said that the Ukrainian government intentionally avoids identifying fallen soldiers. The video was edited using artificial intelligence. An audio file mimicking Biletskyi's voice was generated and inserted into the original footage.
Evidence of this includes the unnatural facial expressions of the serviceman in the video and results from Hive Moderation, an AI-content detection service, which indicate that 99% of the audio in the video was artificially generated.
The original video used to create the deepfake was published on May 16, 2025. In the video, the serviceman does not mention anything about identifying the fallen or compensation for their families. Moreover, Colonel Andrii Biletskyi is the commander of the Third Army Corps and not the commander of the Azov Regiment, as falsely stated in the Russian disinformation. The current commander of the 1st Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine "Azov" is Colonel Denys Prokopenko (aka "Redis").
This is yet another example of Russia using the issue of returning the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers as a tool for manipulation and propaganda. Previously, Ukrinform debunked claims about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers' bodies allegedly being held in Russia and the false claim that bodies were returned only for those whose families refused financial compensation.
Russia had also spread a fake story about the "escape" of the military commandant of the Kursk region, Eduard Moskaliov, to France.