By Xhabir Deralla

It is hypnotizingly beautiful.

Young women walk slowly toward you — graceful, almost floating. Their faces are astonishingly symmetrical, their skin soft and almost translucent, unreal, as if illuminated from within rather than by light. Their eyes are luminous and calm, drilling gently but insistently into your mind. They smile. Not broadly. Just enough to make you feel welcomed. Safe. Chosen.

They move with quiet confidence. Traditional, almost royal garments flow around them — ornate hats, embroidered fabrics, symbols of a timeless past refined into perfection. Nothing feels heavy. Nothing feels crude. Everything is measured, elegant… Deliberate.

In the background, soft electronic tones blend seamlessly with folkloric motifs. A feather-light female voice sings an old Russian folk song, reborn in a modern style — intimate, warm, subtly erotic. The sound doesn’t demand attention. It envelops you. You feel good. You feel drawn in. You stop questioning.

It feels authentic.
It feels ancient.
It feels real.

It is none of those things.

It is artificial intelligence.

What you have just experienced is not storytelling, but terrain preparation — the quiet conditioning of the mind before narratives arrive.

Our journey through this new form of propaganda begins with a video clip widely circulated on Instagram — liked, commented on, and shared at scale. The clip opens with an excerpt from the traditional Russian folk song “Чёрный ворон” (“Black Raven”), a wartime death lament — a reference whose significance is examined in detail in the Contextual Note below.

From aesthetic signal to transnational reach

What makes this form of influence particularly effective is its mode of dissemination. These clips circulate primarily through mainstream platforms such as Instagram and YouTube, embedded seamlessly into users’ everyday cultural consumption rather than political spaces. Comment sections and engagement patterns indicate positive emotional reactions from audiences across Europe — not only in Eastern or Slavic-speaking regions, but also in Western EU countries. This suggests that the content is designed and distributed to travel well across borders, languages, and political contexts, leveraging beauty and mood to bypass cultural and ideological barriers.

This conditioning is reinforced through seemingly unrelated advertising ecosystems. Ads promoting Russian-language learning courses, online computer and IT training in Russian, or real-estate opportunities marketed toward Russian-speaking audiences are increasingly embedded within YouTube videos featuring popular Western-made music and globally recognizable cultural content. The juxtaposition is deliberate: familiar, trusted Western soundscapes lower cognitive defenses, while the advertised content quietly reintroduces Russian language, utility, and presence as neutral, even attractive choices. Language becomes a tool of re-entry, skills become apolitical gateways, and economic aspiration becomes normalization. Russia is not argued for; it is quietly made usable, accessible, and emotionally frictionless.

Platform-level micro-targeting enables this, as user interests in music, learning, career advancement, or relocation are algorithmically cross-matched with linguistically and culturally coded advertising — creating influence pathways that feel personalized rather than political.

A user listening to a favourite Western pop or electronic track is suddenly served an ad inviting them to “learn a useful new language,” “upgrade digital skills,” or “explore property opportunities” — all in Russian, all framed as practical, modern, and globally connected. Nothing signals ideology. Nothing references geopolitics. Yet repetition matters. Over time, Russian language and Russian-facing services are repositioned not as vectors of influence, but as convenient tools for self-improvement and mobility — precisely the kind of soft normalization that hybrid strategies depend on.

When comfort replaces persuasion

Influence no longer arrives as argument or coercion. It arrives as comfort, utility, and familiarity. When language learning, career advancement, and lifestyle aspiration are quietly aligned with a single cultural and geopolitical source, they normalize presence without accountability and rebuild emotional access where trust has been lost. What appears as personal choice or self-improvement is, in fact, a carefully engineered environment in which certain cultural references feel natural, useful, and safe — while their political implications remain invisible.

This form of influence is difficult to regulate, easy to dismiss, and highly effective precisely because it operates below the threshold of political awareness. It targets audiences who do not perceive themselves as political actors at all. By the time explicit narratives appear, the emotional groundwork has already been laid: resistance is lower, scepticism is dulled, and alternative frames feel less foreign — not because they are persuasive, but because they already feel familiar.

In recent days, this pattern has intensified. A noticeable increase in Russian-sponsored advertisements and stylized video content has appeared on YouTube and other platforms. These clips are strikingly polished: AI-generated fashion imagery infused with folkloric motifs, idealized Slavic aesthetics, and modernized ethno music layered over dreamlike visuals. At first glance, they appear apolitical — even harmless. In reality, they are neither accidental nor culturally neutral. They function as affective gateways, preparing audiences emotionally before any message is consciously received.

This is propaganda — but not the kind most people are trained to recognize.

From messaging to mood-shaping

Unlike classic propaganda, which relies on slogans, arguments, or explicit political claims, this new wave operates at a pre-political level. Its purpose is not to persuade directly, but to shape emotional perception, normalize presence, and cultivate familiarity. Beauty replaces ideology. Atmosphere replaces argument.

By stripping folklore of history, violence, and responsibility, these visuals present a sanitized national identity — tradition without empire, culture without aggression, nostalgia without victims. The result is a subtle rehabilitation of Russian imagery at a time when the state itself is internationally associated with war crimes, repression, and imperial aggression.

This tactic did not emerge overnight.

Between 2014 and 2021, Russian soft-power strategy already emphasized culture, tradition, and “spiritual values,” primarily through state media and cultural diplomacy.

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this approach accelerated. As Russia’s global reputation collapsed, overt messaging became less effective abroad. Cultural content increasingly shifted toward indirect, depoliticized formats.

In 2023, early experiments with AI-generated visuals and synthetic music appeared on fringe platforms and Telegram ecosystems.

By 2024–2025, with the maturation of generative AI tools, this approach scaled rapidly — cheaper, faster, anonymous, and algorithm-friendly. Paid promotion via platforms like YouTube marked the transition from experimentation to systematic deployment.

What we are seeing now is not cultural expression, but industrialized aesthetic influence.

Artificial intelligence has changed everything. It is a force multiplier, enabling infinite content variations at negligible cost, plausible deniability (“it’s just art, fashion, music”), and algorithmic optimization — especially among younger, non-political audiences.

This makes AI-generated aesthetics ideal for gray-zone operations: influence activities designed to stay below regulatory, journalistic, and public attention thresholds.

The use of paid advertising is a critical indicator. Ads imply targeting, budget allocation, and intent. This is not organic folklore revival. It is curated exposure, often aimed at foreign audiences, diasporas, or culturally curious users — precisely those least likely to encounter traditional political propaganda.

This content prepares emotional ground. Once identity and familiarity are established, later narratives — about “traditional values,” “Western decadence,” or the supposed legitimacy of Russian geopolitical claims — encounter less resistance. This is narrative laundering, a known component of hybrid warfare.

When propaganda stops arguing and starts seducing, it becomes harder to detect — and more effective.

AI-driven aesthetic influence has become an increasingly prominent layer of Russian hybrid operations. It does not replace disinformation or political messaging. It precedes and enables them by shaping emotional environments in which later narratives encounter less resistance. Ignoring this dimension because it appears apolitical, merely aesthetic, or simply beautiful is a strategic mistake.

The endgame of such operations is not cultural exchange or artistic expression, but strategic advantage. By dulling perception, normalizing presence, and delaying response, aesthetic influence helps create the conditions in which real-world violence becomes easier to sustain — while societies under attack wait for democratic systems to recognize the threat and act.

It is a delivery system — one that softens perception, delays response, and ultimately enables the conditions in which violence, destruction, and civilian deaths become easier to accept.

Beauty, in this context, is not neutral.

It kills. Slowly. Invisibly.

CONTEXTUAL NOTE

From Death Lament to Digital Seduction: “Black Raven” and “Little Christmas Tree” as AI-Driven Propaganda Bullets

Behind the seduction — decoding emotional influence

The emotional power of these videos begins with a deliberate cultural choice. One widely circulated clip opens with the unmistakable first verses of Чёрный ворон (“Black Raven”), one of the most recognizable Russian folk laments. The song tells the story of a wounded soldier lying on the battlefield, calmly addressing the raven circling above him — a symbol of death, inevitability, and the fragile line between life and surrender. For generations, Black Raven has carried the weight of loss, war, and fatalistic dignity. Its emotional authority is deep, collective, and immediate.

In the video, however, this authority is not preserved — it is extracted. After several authentic verses, the song dissolves into a softened, modernized vocal line stripped of narrative and historical specificity. The soldier disappears. The battlefield vanishes. What remains is atmosphere: warmth, the soul, inner certainty, emotional reassurance. A death lament becomes a comfort loop. Tragedy is aestheticized. Memory is emptied and repackaged.

A similar mechanism operates in other AI-generated clips circulating on social platforms. In one such video, the audio appears to draw on the melody of Маленькая ёлочка (“Little Christmas Tree”), a widely known Russian children’s song associated with early childhood, warmth, and innocence. Unlike Black Raven, this song carries no association with war or death. Its emotional charge is different — safety, nostalgia, and pre-political comfort. Yet the function is the same: to evoke a deep emotional register that feels non-threatening, familiar, and reassuring.

This contrast is precisely the point — and the line where AI aesthetics become a tool of influence. Whether invoking a wartime lament or a children’s holiday song, these clips activate culturally embedded emotional memory while systematically stripping it of context, history, and responsibility. AI-driven visuals — idealized faces, translucent skin, folkloric garments polished into perfection — align seamlessly with softened, modernized audio. Whether fully generated or heavily AI-assisted, the result is a synthetic intimacy: culturally resonant yet historically weightless. The viewer is not asked to remember, reflect, or question. They are invited to feel — calmly, warmly, safely.

This is where AI aesthetics function as propaganda bullets.

In the context of Russian propaganda and hybrid operations, this matters deeply. By invoking Black Raven, a clip taps into a reservoir of collective wartime memory while simultaneously neutralizing it. Suffering is acknowledged only long enough to lend authenticity; then it is dissolved into beauty and reassurance. This is not remembrance — it is narrative laundering. By invoking Little Christmas Tree, another clip draws on childhood innocence and emotional safety, lowering defenses even further. Different emotional keys, the same strategic effect.

These individual aesthetic products — like dozens of others examined in this analysis — are enhanced and refined through artificial intelligence. Their purpose is not to replace propaganda. They precede it. They prepare the emotional terrain, lower defensive reflexes, and reintroduce cultural symbols without responsibility or context. When tradition is made beautiful but hollow, it becomes portable. And once it becomes portable, it becomes usable — not as culture, but as influence.

AI-assisted research, analysis, language refinement, and editorial support. All interpretations, conclusions, and responsibility remain solely with the author. Author image created with AI-assisted illustration.

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