Russia is using artificial intelligence to generate scores of propaganda songs celebrating the war against Ukraine, The New York Times reports, citing a study by the Ukrainian non-profit Terrecon.
Terrecon cataloged 981 such songs on top music streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Deezer.
The tracks glorify Russian soldiers and dehumanize Ukrainians, sometimes with ethnic slurs. Among those whose release date could be established, a vast majority appeared after 2024, when AI song generators including Suno and Udio entered the market.
The tracks range from ballads to thrash metal. One of the most popular songs, “Power of Artillery,” is a rock paean in Russian to artillery systems with names like Krasnopol and Carnation.
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Terrecon founder Darya Verbytska said that artificial intelligence allows to generate large volumes of propaganda quickly.
“They have found new ways to create cheaper drones and use them on a massive scale. It’s like that with music — creating massive propaganda with the help of AI,” Verbytska said.
Researchers try out AI music generators
Terrecon tested AI music generators — Suno, Udio and Google Flow Music in the United States, and Mureka, based in Singapore — by writing prompts in Russian and English for songs promoting Russian propaganda, including dehumanizing content and calls for violence.
The generators refused to carry out some of the prompts, but the researchers were able to create songs similar to the ones they had cataloged and to upload them on YouTube Music and SoundCloud.
“The moderation systems mainly responded to specific banned words rather than the overall meaning of the prompts,” Terrecon’s report found.
Apple, Suno, Udio and Mureka did not respond to requests for comment.
Only some AI generated content labelled by platforms
The surge in songs has also been enabled partly because of inconsistent rules by music generators and popular streaming services, researchers say.
Only some services, including Deezer and YouTube, require labeling that identifies AI content.
The major streaming sites have policies against hate speech and violent content, but few explicitly restrict propaganda. The sites also do not always capture idiomatic expressions or slurs in foreign languages.
According to Terrecon, the catalogued pro-war songs have been played millions of times.
The extent of the Russian government’s role in propagating the songs is not clear, The New York Times writes. Last week, a director of the Moscow-based Internet Development Institute cited in a presentation more than 350 artistic projects about the war the institute has promoted.
On 22 September 2026, the Criteria for Classifying Information as Containing Propaganda for the Russian Totalitarian Regime, Russian Armed Aggression, and Symbols of Military Invasion for entities operating in the audiovisual media sector took effect in Ukraine.