Dropped by his own trolls. During the failed mutiny of his group of mercenaries on June 23 and 24, paid commentators and other “bots” (robots) relaying the work of the former did not support Yevgeny Prigojine, insisting instead on the wisdom of Vladimir Putin. This observation – which does not lack irony, the name of Mr. Prigojine having been associated with trolls before being associated with Wagner – is drawn up by three observers of the online action of the Prigojine networks, cities, Saturday 1er July, by the exile investigative media Agentstvo.
In reality, note these experts, some of the trolls of the Internet Research Agency, the structure that oversees them, began in May to attack their boss, denouncing as dangerous or “hysterical” his attacks on the Ministry of Defence. This reversal would tend to show that Yevgueni Prigojine had begun to lose control of his group even before the end of the mutiny.
Another observation made by Agentstvo : despite announcements of suspension or cessation of their activities, trolls and bots active on Twitter and VKontakte (the Russian Facebook) continue their activity so far. This last point is perhaps the most important: the future of the businessman’s influence activities is hardly less strategic than that of armed mercenaries, called upon to blend into the regular army or to exile in Belarus with their leader.
“The Patriot media group closes and leaves the Russian information space”, assured on June 29 Evgueni Zubarev, general manager of RIA FAN, the most important media of this group formally created in 2019 which has a dozen websites and hundreds of partner media. If the 300 million daily visits claimed by Patriot are questionable, this network is indeed a heavyweight on the Russian media scene – known for its outrageous treatment of the news and its particularly uninhibited relationship with false information. RIA FAN, which presents itself as a news agency, alone published between 800 and 900 articles a day.
As of June 23, the authorities blocked access to some of the group’s sites. Others have themselves put their activity on hold. Employees have been fired, some put on technical unemployment, with the order to erase their traces on the Internet. The Russian media evoke the names of possible buyers, in the first place that of Yuri Kovaltchouk, a longtime close friend of Vladimir Putin.
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