On other parts of the app, the silence spread through normally vocal accounts. So did more conventional propagandists, such as Margarita Simonyan, editor of the state television news network RT. Once a supporter of Prigozhin, Simonyan’s Telegram account was quiet on Saturday. Her explanation? She was on a cruise on the Volga River. But parts of the new generation of Telegram influencers also remained silent. The anonymous Veteran Notes account, which has 320,000 subscribers, did not post when the uprising began Friday evening — due to circumstances “unrelated” to the Wagner uprising, the account said, without explaining.
“We saw silence among some military bloggers playing on both sides in recent months,” said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russian analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank.
For Wagner-affiliated accounts, such as Call Sign Bruce, run by the independent war correspondent Alexander Simonov, the quiet period came later. After a burst of excitement during the mutiny – which shared Prigozhin’s statements and photos from Rostov-on-Don, the city where Wagner briefly took charge – the pace of the accounts’ posts slowed. Simonov hasn’t posted since Monday, June 26.
Until now, these military bloggers have been united by a shared nationalism, eager for Russia to win the war in Ukraine, and have had unusual freedom to criticize government decisions. Earlier in June, several Telegram influencers attended a public meeting with Putin for the first time, where they confronted him with questions such as: Why do talented people in the military compete to reach the top? And why don’t soldiers get payments for destroyed tanks?
But that willingness to criticize may be threatened, experts say. While Prigozhin apparently goes into exile in Belarus, the military bloggers have lost a high-profile ally willing to speak openly about military failures in Ukraine. Yet self-censorship began to creep into this group long before the Wagner mutiny, says Stepanenko. “Rybar used to go on these very long tangents about how much the Russian Defense Ministry actually sucks,” she says, “now the account mainly publishes battlefield situation reports.” Wagner’s failed rebellion threatens to accelerate this trend, she adds. “It may lead some military blogs to deliberately self-censor to make sure they don’t look or sound like Prigozhin.”
These bloggers have been useful to the Kremlin, says Ian Garner, a historian and Russian propaganda researcher. They represent a new blend of citizen-journalism-meets-propaganda. “They give the impression that ordinary citizens are very enthusiastic about the war,” he says.
But there are signs that Putin wants to bring it voenkory in line. The June meeting was likely an attempt to show bloggers that they are valued and respected, Garner says. “It was part of a wider effort to bring this frayed and disparate network of intelligence fighters and frontline troops all under the purview of the Department of Defense and the state.” Prigozhin’s mutiny may have inadvertently made that effort more influential.
This new generation of Telegram influencers will be painfully aware that if Putin turns against them, he already has the means to crack down. In March this year, Moscow tightened its censorship laws, meaning anyone who “discredits” the military could be punished with up to five years in prison. According to human rights organization OVD-Info, 80 people had already been prosecuted under the new rules in May. So far, the law has only been used to attack bloggers who oppose the war, not those who support it.
