Vladlen Tatarsky killed in St. Petersburg cafe explosion/@Vladlentatarskybooks/Telegram/Reuters
2023.04.07 Fri posted at 06:55 JST
（ＣＮＮ） The murder of Russian blogger Vladren Tatarsky has brought attention to the secret world of military bloggers who support the invasion of Ukraine. There is also interest in the major role bloggers play in the Russian propaganda machine.
Tatarsky’s real name is Maxim Fomin. He was a guest of a pro-war group at the Saint Petersburg café where the blast took place on the 2nd. He is known for his support of the war against Ukraine and the head of the private military company Wagner, Evgeny Prigozhin, and has been a harsh critic of Russia’s failures on the battlefield.
With over 500,000 subscribers on his personal Telegram channel, he was a prominent figure in the world of military bloggers. But Tatarsky isn’t the only influential blogger.
Russia shut down the last remaining independent media outlets after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. War coverage in Russian state media is tightly controlled by the president’s office. Foreign media is censored and most dissident journalists are imprisoned or flee the country.
Some of these information gaps are filled by pro-regime pundits, sometimes called “war correspondents.”
Candace Rondeau of the New American Research Institute, a think tank, told CNN, “The role that military bloggers play in Russia today is unclear, but it does. They’re the only ones who actually light up,” he explains.
Many of Russia’s military bloggers are deeply ingrained in the military, Wagner, and pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, building unparalleled intelligence networks. Tatarsky himself was born in Ukraine, fought alongside Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass region, and reportedly had close ties to Wagner. He also has a criminal record, and according to Russian media reports and his own confession, he is said to have served time for bank robbery.
“Their views of the war are clearly biased, but their presence is essential to at least understand what is happening on one side,” Rondeau added.
Ruslan Trad, a researcher at the Atlantic Council think tank, told CNN that while the blogger community is internally cohesive, it is often linked to the Russian Ministry of Defense and other security services.
“These bloggers knew each other, often went to the same destination, kept in touch, and often had a closed system. Mr. Tatarsky was an important part of this community.”
“At the same time, Mr. Tatarsky was critical of Russian officers and the higher ups making decisions about military actions. He was a strong advocate, and he wanted the Russian military to be even more successful,” Trad said.
Correspondents sometimes cross ethical lines. Mr Tatarsky posted a photo of himself carrying a weapon in a combat zone.
Roots of extreme nationalism
Many of the bloggers, including Tatarsky, are long-time veterans who have covered the Middle East, Africa and the military operations of Russia and Wagner in the Donbass conflict that began in 2014. He has also played a role in encouraging support for the Ukraine war in general.
“For years now, they have been constantly feeding pro-war, anti-Western, and anti-Ukrainian propaganda to the hard right in Russia. is in many ways due to them.” (Mr. Rondeau)
Last year’s all-out invasion of Ukraine and subsequent tightening of restrictions on Western social networking sites such as Twitter and Instagram in Russia have boosted the influence of bloggers.
Katerina Stepanenko, a Russian analyst at the US think tank War Research Institute, told CNN, “They flooded Telegram en masse, and from around April or May last year, the opportunities for their content to be picked up increased. This is the period when Russia began to experience military failures.”
Russia’s unsuccessful attempts to block Telegram after its founder refused to hand over encryption keys to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Many of the popular military blogs on Telegram have their roots in extreme nationalist movements. The ideas they propagate aren’t exactly new, but technology has made them reach far more people than ever before.
Tradd said the blogger’s readership is dominated by far-right supporters, nationalists, pagans and extreme Orthodox Christians. “By most standards, the Telegram channel aligns with the channels broadcast by the far right and conspiracy theorists in the United States,” he said.
freedom to criticize
Unlike Russian state media, many influential military bloggers have not shied away from criticizing Russia’s defeat on the battlefield. Criticism has been directed at Kherson’s withdrawal in November last year and the stagnation of the protracted battle to capture Bahmut.
According to Stepanenko, the rise of these bloggers came about after the failure of the Donets crossing operation, which stalled the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine last May.
No matter how critical the bloggers are of the Russian leadership, there is a stark difference in how Russian authorities treat these bloggers and others who oppose the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said on Monday that thanks to Tatarsky and other military bloggers, “the world is getting information about the situation in Ukraine by watching factual footage of the operation.” rice field.
But without exception, Russian authorities take tough action against anyone who reports on military atrocities.
Last December, opposition activist and Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for spreading “false information” after reporting on the Bucha massacre. Another journalist, Maria Ponomarenko, was sentenced to six years in prison after telegramming about airstrikes on theaters in Mariupol that killed hundreds.
While Tatarsky and other bloggers often criticize the way Russia conducts military operations, they remain firm in their support of the war itself.
“They are very strong thinkers. They believe that Russia is the winning nation in this conflict. Their goal is to win Russia and conquer all of Ukraine. We are even looking at the battle of the
