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J·Index / Countries / Russia

AI in Russia's news media

9 verified, source-linked AI implementations across 9 news organizations, 2022–2025.
Europe and Central Asia2022–2025
Cases
9
Organizations
9
Active since
2022
Controversies
1
Compared with the global pattern, Research & Investigation accounts for 44% of cases here against 10% worldwide.

What AI is used for — and how that differs

Russiaworldwide sharepp = percentage-point difference
Research & Investigation4+35pp
Transcription & Translation2+19pp
Content Production & Automation1-3pp
Verification & Fact-Checking1+4pp
Multimedia & Visual Production1+7pp

How far adoption has gone

1 – Access0
2 – Adoption4
3 – Proficiency4
4 – Ways of Working1
5 – Reorganizing0

Who is adopting

Funding: Own budget (6), Public broadcaster / state media (3)

Notable cases

2025Zvezda TV

'PolitStacker' (Политукладчик) — weekly 40-minute satirical political show claimed to be generated by AI, featuring AI-generated host 'Natasha' (modeled on presenter Nataliya Metlina) and AI-generated deepfake videos of world leaders including Trump, Zelensky, Macron and von der Leyen in fabricated scenarios; Zvezda describes it as 'world's first television program created by artificial intelligence'

Multimedia & Visual Production4 – Ways of Working⚑ controversy
AI avatar generation"; deepfake video synthesis; neural network for topic selectionSource →

2022Lapsha Media (Лапша Медиа)

Russian state-affiliated fact-checking platform (run with ANO 'Dialog Regiony' and HSE; partners TASS, Lenta.ru and 360tv) that combines classical fact-checking with the 'Zephyr' (Зефир) AI system — monitoring audiovisual material, including deepfakes, via speech transcription, algorithmic evaluation and AI analysis, plus tag/keyword/geolocation monitoring across channels.

Verification & Fact-Checking3 – Proficiency
'Zephyr' (Зефир) AI audiovisual/deepfake monitoring; speech transcription + algorithmic +Source →

2025iStories (Important Stories)

Custom-trained neural network (Charon project) scans public death announcements to identify Russian military casualties, tagging war-related deaths and extracting attributes (age, region, deployment date) to build a searchable casualty database shared with journalists and researchers

Research & Investigation2 – Adoption
Custom neural network (Charon)Source →

2025Meduza

AI machine translation of news articles from Russian into English, with human editorial review of every draft before publication; disclosed on all AI-translated articles: ""translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards

Transcription & Translation3 – Proficiency
Proprietary AI translation model (undisclosed)Source →

2024URA.RU

Neural networks used by journalists for rewriting news feeds, creating headlines, transcribing interviews and automatically correcting materials; hybrid model in which AI handles routine tasks while journalists add context

Transcription & Translation3 – Proficiency
analysis and authorial styleSource →

2024RIA Novosti

AI tools for monitoring public opinion and social media, identifying emerging trends to accelerate preparation of analytical and investigative materials

Research & Investigation2 – Adoption
AI analytics tools (BrandAnalytics; Medialogia;" SNIPR referenced as sector tools)Source →

Elsewhere in Europe and Central Asia

Albania 4Armenia 7Austria 22Azerbaijan 1Belarus 5Belgium 25Bosnia and Herzegovina 3Bulgaria 6Croatia 5Cyprus 1Czech Republic 24Denmark 27
Data from J·Index, the Journalism AI Index — every case verified against a published source. See the methodological note for how cases are collected and coded. Updated 2026-07-23.