'Gennady Rakitin,' an invented pro-war poet
The AI-generated profile photo of 'Gennady Rakitin,' presented as a 49-year-old teacher and pro-war 'Z-poet' on the Russian network VKontakte from mid-2023. The man does not exist, and his poems were lightly edited Russian translations of 1930s and 1940s Nazi verse. Russian officials, State Duma deputies and poetry prizes took up the account before its creators revealed the hoax in June 2024.
- Date
- 2023
- Period
- Contemporary
- Made by
- A group of anti-war Russian exiles (revealed June 2024)
- Region
- Eastern Europe and Eurasia
- Country
- Russia
- Medium
- Digital posts
- Issuer type
- Covert network
- Regime
- Putin Government
- Leader
- Vladimir Putin
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Deceive or deny
- Themes
- War and the military, Media and information, Science and technology
- Event
- Russian Invasion of Ukraine
- Techniques
- Synthetic mediaAstroturfing
- Source
- Impersonated Source falsified: fake personas, outlets or documents
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (AI-generated, no human author)
Text on the object
No printed or legible text on this object.
Checked closely: a head-and-shoulders portrait of the invented 'Rakitin' persona against trees and a blurred wooden shed, with no signage, clothing text, captions or watermarks anywhere in the frame.
