Russian military bloggers

In Russia, military bloggers[1] (also called "war bloggers", "milbloggers"[2] or voenkory, "war correspondents"[3]) have gained prominence during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, providing a greater level of information about the war than is available from state media. Blogs range from those affiliated with state media, which often provided information more in-line with that of government positions, to independent and Wagner Group-affiliated blogs which are more critical of the Russian military establishment's performance in Ukraine. These blogs are notable for their ultranationalist and pro-war views.[4] but can be critical of the Russian government's prosecution of the war.[5][4] In 2023, many of these bloggers were active on the messaging app Telegram;[6] however, as of 2026 Telegram has been banned in Russia in what has been seen as an attempt to curtail criticism of the war.[7]

The Institute for the Study of War attributed their popularity to the Russian government's failure to establish an effective social media presence as well as its failure in preparing the Russian public for a drawn-out war. The Russian government has protected them from calls for censorship and has selectively granted positions to nationalist and pro-war milbloggers due to their importance in the ultranationalist constituency which Vladimir Putin's presidency has become increasingly reliant upon. Putin himself has met with prominent milbloggers aligned with state-media to discuss military matters.[8] However, since September 2023, the Russian government arrested a number of high-profile milbloggers, which some have seen as a crackdown on the community.[9]


Prominent Russian military bloggers

References

  1. ↑ Albertini, Marco; Giacomello, Giampiero; Zinnatullin, Aidar (October 2025). "Russian military bloggers: Corpus and dataset of collected posts, 2022–2023". Data in Brief. 62 112015. doi:10.1016/j.dib.2025.112015. PMC 12545825. PMID 41143272.
  2. ↑ Rundin, Ksenia (December 9, 2025). "Moscow's war bloggers and the grammar of dissent". Engelsberg ideas. Retrieved 19 April 2026.
  3. ↑ Kottasová, Ivana (2023-04-04). "Putin's digital footsoldiers: How bloggers became a key cog in Russia's war machine". CNN. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
  4. 1 2 Shevchenko, Vitaly (4 April 2023). "Ukraine war: Who are Russia's war bloggers and why are they popular?". Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  5. ↑ Jensen, Donald N.; Howard, Angela. "How Russia's Military Bloggers Shape the Course of Putin's War". United States Institute of Peace. Archived from the original on August 11, 2023. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  6. ↑ Farbman, Sam (4 May 2023). "Telegram, 'Milbloggers' and the Russian State". Survival. 65 (3): 107–128. doi:10.1080/00396338.2023.2218703.
  7. ↑ Bowman, Verity (20 March 2026). "How Telegram became a death sentence for Russian soldiers". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 23 August 2026.
  8. ↑ "Institute for the Study of War". Retrieved 14 June 2023.
  9. ↑ Peck, Michael (September 15, 2023). "Recent arrests suggest Putin is quietly trying to rein in some of his most effective promoters of the war in Ukraine". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
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