Russia blames discontent among pro-war bloggers on Ukraine buying up Telegram channels

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on Friday that growing discontent with the Kremlin among pro-war bloggers was due to a Ukrainian campaign to “purchase Russian military and patriotic Telegram channels”.

In a press release, the SVR alleged that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had begun purchasing Russian pro-war channels in late April 2026, using fake accounts under the names of “public figures who are opinion leaders”.

According to the SVR, the purchased channels are subsequently used to spread “fake news” and other information that “discredits” the Russian authorities and the army.

“The SBU wants to organise efforts to destabilise the situation in our country under the guise of disseminating patriotic content”, the press release continued. The SVR did not provide any evidence for the allegations.

So-called “Z-bloggers” operating popular Telegram military news channels form a significant part of Russia’s informal pro-Kremlin media ecosystem. Nonetheless, Z-bloggers frustrated with the slow pace of the war often express dissatisfaction with Russia’s military leadership, the Kremlin, and Vladimir Putin personally.

A lack of progress on the front lines, corruption among Defence Ministry officials, and Russia’s ongoing throttling of Telegram are the most common causes of dissatisfaction among pro-war commentators.

Over the past year, several Z-bloggers have been targeted by the authorities after publicly criticising the Kremlin or the Russian army.

In September 2025, Roman Alyokhin became the first pro-war blogger to be declared a “foreign agent” by the Justice Ministry for “disseminating inaccurate information about … the Russian authorities and their policies.” A district court in Kursk later fined him 30,000 rubles (€353) for failing to submit mandatory reports about his activities.

In March, pro-war blogger Ilya Remeslo was taken into psychiatric care in St. Petersburg after sharing a post entitled “Five reasons I no longer support Vladimir Putin”, sparking widespread speculation about the reasons behind his sudden break with the Kremlin.

In an interview with exiled Russian journalist Alexander Plyushchev given the day before he was sectioned, Remeslo claimed he had spoken to several well-known pro-war figures who had privately expressed similar discontent with Putin’s regime.