The Kremlin could have been trying to curry favor from prominent Russian war bloggers by inviting them to its New Year's Eve television show, according to a Monday report from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
"The Kremlin is likely co-opting some Russian milbloggers [military bloggers] who are willing to sell out in exchange for political prestige," the ISW wrote.
The U.S.-based think tank reported that bloggers Alexander Sladkov and Yevgeniy Poddubny were at the Kremlin's primetime television show Goluboy Ogonek 2023 in Moscow. The December 31 TV special aired immediately after Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual New Year's Eve speech, and Putin was said to have attended Goluboy Ogonek 2023, along with Kremlin politicians and members of Russia's cultural elite.
Sladkov and Poddubny being invited to the event was significant because both have recently criticized the Russian military's failures, the ISW said.
The report also mentioned how other bloggers and social media voices who supported Putin's war in Ukraine have spoken out against Russia's battleground losses, as well as the Kremlin's efforts to curbs such criticisms.
Another example cited by the ISW of Russian officials working to win over popular voices in the country was how the creators of the Telegram channel Rybar said they received offers to create an open-source intelligence (OSINT) program "to benefit Russian private businesses and force structures." The OSINT program offers came after Rybar gave a lecture at an elite, state-run institute of higher education that operates under the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the report.
The ISW further detailed how Russia's air and missile campaign in Ukraine's Khmelnytskyi region on December 31 wasn't met with "the Kremlin's desired information effects among Russia's nationalists." Though a noted Russian blogger characterized the strike as well-executed, the writer also felt such assaults should have come earlier in the war and with quicker follow-up offensives.
"The blogger noted that this was not the first time that Russian forces failed to deliver effective strikes due to an absence of secondary strikes and that Russia should generally be more thorough in its destruction," the report said.
Russian military leadership received online criticism following a Ukrainian strike using HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) on a Russian base in the Donetsk region on New Year's Eve. While the Russian Ministry of Defense acknowledged the strike, it said 63 Russian troops were killed. However, various sources—including some Russian military bloggers—have put the death count higher.
The Russian Ministry of Defense's "vague acknowledgment" of the HIMARS attack caused many online commentators to condemn military command, according to the ISW. The think tank said bloggers affiliated with the Wagner Group—the paramilitary organization run by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin—have said the military command has made such strikes by Ukraine easier.
"Such profound military failures will continue to complicate Putin's efforts to appease the Russian pro-war community and retain the dominant narrative in the domestic information space," the ISW wrote. "Putin's inability to address the criticism and fix the flaws in Russia's military campaign may undermine his credibility as a hands-on war leader."
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.
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Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more
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