Ukraine war: Putin influencers profiting from war propaganda

Russia's pro-war influencers are generating large advertizing revenues from their societal media sum of the conflict, the BBC has found.

Alongside a regular ration of gruesome videos of drone strikes and mendacious claims astir Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, they stock ads for thing from cryptocurrency to fashion.

Known successful Russia arsenic "Z-Bloggers" due to the fact that of their enactment for a warfare often symbolised by the missive Z, they are often embedded with the Russian service and station footage from the beforehand enactment wherever they telephone connected young Russians to enlist.

Since the commencement of the full-scale penetration successful February 2022, pro-war influencers person gained millions of followers connected Telegram, the societal media level galore Russians turned to aft President Vladimir Putin banned Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

That detonation successful users has led to a surge successful Telegram's advertizing market.

War influencers person taken vantage of this. They merchantability advertisement spaces for companies looking to scope their young audiences.

To find retired however overmuch they charge, members of the BBC's Global Disinformation Team posed arsenic edifice owners funny successful posting ads connected their channels.

We reached retired to immoderate of the astir salient players.

One of them was Alexander Kots, a seasoned analogous for a pro-government paper who became a warfare influencer, with much than 600,000 followers connected his idiosyncratic Telegram channel.

Semyon Pegov, known arsenic WarGonzo, was another. Perhaps the astir well-known Z blogger, helium has much than 1.3 cardinal followers.

Alexander Kots said it would outgo 48,000-70,000 roubles (£440-£680) per station connected his channel, depending connected however agelong the advertisement was kept astatine the apical of his Telegram feed. WarGonzo quoted america the equivalent of £1,550 per post.

Top warfare influencers station astatine slightest 1 advertisement per day, truthful their imaginable income dwarfs Russia's mean monthly wage of 66,000 roubles (£550).

An advertizing cause moving with Wagner-linked channels quoted america the equivalent of £260 per advertisement successful Grey Zone, a Telegram transmission with exclusive entree to Wagner and implicit 600,000 followers.

To advertise connected the transmission of Alexander Simonov, a analogous for the Ria Fan website founded by precocious mercenary brag Yevgeny Prigozhin, the cause quoted £180 per post.

Another Ria Fan reporter, Alexander Yaremchuk, has less followers truthful his rates are lower, astatine £86 per post.

While immoderate of the Z-bloggers person important acquisition of warfare reporting for state-run media, others similar Maryana Naumova person nary nonrecreational training.

A erstwhile powerlifter, she took a reporting people connected a Wagner mercenary basal and present presents her ain amusement connected nationalist TV.

The BBC tried to interrogation salient war-bloggers, but Alexander Kots was the lone 1 of them who agreed to talk.

Speaking from the occupied Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut, helium described himself arsenic a newsman successful an accusation war. Nevertheless helium understood Russia's propaganda depended, successful part, connected radical similar him.

"The Ministry of Defence often listens to us, and we person a nonstop transmission to privately pass accusation to them. It's each down the scenes, and I bash that," helium said.

The BBC's Global Disinformation Team tells the communicative of societal media influencers making wealth from warfare propaganda.

The increasing marketplace for the Z-bloggers' worldly is sustained by a dependable watercourse of exclusive videos. The footage brings them a divers following, from home pro-war audiences to Western and Ukrainian analysts trying to recognize what is truly going connected successful the Russian trenches.

However, immoderate of the videos posted by the pro-war bloggers are fake.

Last March, salient influencers including Alexander Kots posted a dashcam video that purported to amusement 2 Ukrainian soldiers stopping a car with a pistillate and a tiny child.

The gunmen successful the video telephone the pistillate "a pig" for speaking Russian and endanger her. Z-bloggers said the video was a cleanable illustration of however Ukraine treated civilians.

But we person geolocated this video to Makiivka, a municipality adjacent Donetsk. This country of Ukraine has been occupied by pro-Russian proxy forces since 2014. It is intolerable that a uniformed Ukrainian worker could person operated successful this occupied territory.

Added to that, the usage of dashcams is amerciable successful Ukraine. The prohibition was imposed aft the full-scale Russian penetration to support unit movements secret.

And the transverse connected the conveyance is antithetic from the 1 utilized by Ukraine's equipped forces. All these elements suggest the video was staged.

It is 1 of galore fakes dispersed by Z-bloggers to promote young Russians to enactment the war, and determination is grounds they are succeeding.

In 1 video a mobilised Russian antheral says helium went to a recruitment centre aft watching a fig of videos from Vladlen Tatarsky, 1 of the astir vocal bloggers. Tatarsky was killed successful April 2023 astatine a gathering with his fans.

Another Russian antheral who volunteered to combat successful Ukraine told a blogger helium did truthful aft watching a batch of WarGonzo reports. "I travel each the subject quality and investigation connected Telegram," helium said, referring to the Z-bloggers.

Asked to respond to the emergence of pro-Putin warfare bloggers connected the platform, Telegram said it was the "last level done which Russians tin entree autarkic media outlets similar Meduza, uncensored planetary quality similar the BBC oregon [President] Zelensky's speeches".

A spokesperson said portion each parties were "treated equally", Telegram respected planetary sanctions and blocked Russian authorities media "where laws forbid it".

Over the people of the war, President Putin has shown his appreciation of the Z-bloggers' efforts.

He appointed Alexander Kots to the statesmanlike quality rights assembly and made Semyon Pegov and respective different bloggers members of a moving radical connected mobilisation.

In June, helium invited pro-war influencers and authorities media reporters to the Kremlin for a two-hour agelong conversation.

"The combat successful the accusation abstraction is simply a battlefield. A important battlefield," helium told them. "And I truly number connected your help."