They report almost every minute on movements at the front and criticize military decisions: Russian military bloggers have dominated the flow of information since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion. In doing so, they promote both enlightenment and Putin’s propaganda.
It’s an image you rarely see: President Vladimir Putin is sitting at a table with several men and women. Instead of the many meters that often separate the Kremlin boss from his guests, this time it’s only a few centimeters. A total of 16 Russian military bloggers – also known as military correspondents – listen as Putin recounts Ukrainian casualties. You belong to a select group of bloggers close to the Kremlin, whose influence has been steadily growing since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
The most successful of them have two to three million followers on Telegram. Every day they flood their readers’ channels with new information and pictures from the front. They write most of their content themselves and then share it on Russian social media platforms such as Telegram or RuTube (Russian YouTube). They are often faster than the Russian Ministry of Defense because they have a closer relationship with the armed forces. This allows them to make assessments based on first-hand accounts independent of Department of Defense censorship.
They get their information directly from the Russian military, where they spend most of their time. There they are either active at the front or are so well connected that they get their sources within the military structure, writes the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in one November report. Many of them have been in the army for years and know the procedures and generals. Previous military experience is important – not only because they need expertise to report, but because they risk their lives on the front line every day.
Between criticism and the Kremlin
But according to the ISW, Russian military bloggers are not exclusively pro-war advocates. They would have developed into a group with its own voice within Russia. Despite many erroneous statements designed to serve as Kremlin propaganda and intended to demoralize Ukrainian soldiers and Western allies, they provide “a highly informal platform that differs drastically from the structured narrative of the Russian Defense Ministry.”
The best way to see this is to look at the numbers of Ukrainian losses. While the Russian Defense Ministry often reports more weapons destroyed than Ukraine actually possesses, war bloggers’ figures are, for the most part, far lower — and more realistic. They also point to the mistakes and weaknesses of the Russian military, which is either hushed up or denied by the public.
Military bloggers are united by a unique selling point in Russian society: they can openly criticize the military leadership without having to fear the consequences. This is because they are not attacking war per se or authoritarian rule, said Russia and security expert Sarah Pagung from the Körber Foundation ARD. “They only criticize individual actors or actions within the system, such as the Russian Defense Ministry.”
Closely intertwined with “nationalist ideologues”
For Putin, this is not a threat, since individual actors within the system attack each other, but not the Kremlin boss personally, Pagung explains. The ISW also writes that the Kremlin has allowed the military blogger community to take an independent position and spread their own narratives on the war.
Despite this, many bloggers are not independent of the Russian government. For example, the Russian investigative magazine “The Bell” has revealed that the founder of one of the most influential Russian Telegram channels, Rybar, is a former employee of the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Other military bloggers are correspondents for Russian state media such as Komsomoslkaya Pravda, Ria, and RiaFan, and they provide very one-sided coverage of the war, it said.
Although there is a wide range of different characters, of which, according to the ISW, a few have also criticized the war itself, the majority of bloggers are united by a strong Russian nationalist attitude. They are anti-Ukraine and “intertwined with prominent Russian nationalist ideologues,” the report says. Security expert Pagung also speaks of “inhuman devaluation” of Ukrainians and the spread of “typical Kremlin narratives that are in line with Russia’s imperialist ambitions.”
Propaganda also on the smartphone
For Putin, they have therefore become an important tool in the propaganda machine. Because while this is well-oiled on the television for the older generation, the Kremlin is losing touch with the younger generation on smartphones. “The population over 60, where the television is on all day, has Putin on his side,” says ntv correspondent Peter Leontiev. The younger ones are more skeptical about Putin and don’t trust him blindly.
According to the ISW’s assessments, the prominence of military bloggers “is likely a direct result of the Kremlin’s failure to establish an effective Telegram presence.” The Russian center for media statistics Brand Analytics found that between the start of the war on February 24 and October 1, 2022, the number of Russian bloggers on Telegram increased by 58 percent, while using banned Western social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter declined significantly.
Some pro-Kremlin military bloggers like Alexander Zladkov have long since achieved celebrity status in Russia, says Leontyev, who grew up in Berlin and Moscow and served in the Soviet army for years. “They get in everywhere and are well known everywhere. They play the same important role in propaganda as television does, just on a different level.”
The meeting between Putin and the military bloggers a few days ago was intended to give the impression that Putin was “close to the action,” said Leontiev. At the end, the Kremlin chief read out figures of Ukrainian casualties, which matched those of the Defense Ministry but were far higher than those of the correspondents. The critical looks of individual bloggers with this information can hardly be overlooked on videos. “But nobody would ever object,” says Leontiev. “The only one who is not criticized is Putin.”