ISW: Why Putin appeases Russian military bloggers

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended the military bloggers (milbloggers) from the Defence Ministry attacks and protected their independence even as he increases oppression and censorship throughout Russia.

The milblogger community maintains a heavily pro-war and Russian nationalist outlook and is intertwined with prominent Russian nationalist ideologists, Caliber.Az reports, citing the report of the Institute for the Study of War.

Milbloggers’ close relationships with armed forces – whether Russian Armed Forces, Chechen special units, Wagner Group mercenaries, or proxy formations – have given this community an authoritative voice arguably louder in the Russian information space than the Russian Defence Ministry (MoD).

Russian milbloggers offer a highly informal platform that differs dramatically from the Russian MoD’s structured presentation of the war. 

Putin even has promoted some prominent milbloggers with large numbers of followers in order to reach the nationalist constituency to which they speak and most importantly to prevent this group from turning against Putinism. 

The prominence of the milblogger community is likely a direct result of the Kremlin’s failure to establish an effective Telegram presence stemming from Putin’s general failure to prepare his people for a serious and protracted war. 

Putin continues to double down on support for the independence of milblogger reporting even as he doubles down on efforts to mobilize the Russian population for war. These two phenomena are almost certainly related.