Pro-Kremlin Bloggers Turn on Putin

Prominent pro-Kremlin military bloggers are openly questioning Russian President Vladimir Putin's response to last weekend's failed mutiny by the Wagner Group.

While many of these writers directed their criticisms toward the Kremlin and other Russian authorities, some mentioned Putin by name in expressing their frustration about how he dealt with the mercenary group's uprising.

Military bloggers, also referred to as milbloggers or voyenkory, have become very influential in Russia during the country's war with Ukraine. Many of these correspondents claim to have military knowledge, while others say they are embedded with Putin's troops in Ukraine. As a show of the sway these journalists have over Russian public opinion, Putin held a direct meeting with several military bloggers on June 13 to discuss issues related to the war.

Throughout the war, these bloggers have directly attacked figures like Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, but for the most part they have remained loyal to Putin. However, when Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last Friday ordered a march on Moscow after he said Russia's military attacked his troops, some bloggers expressed surprise that Putin didn't respond with more might. Others took exception to the Kremlin's honoring Moscow's security forces following the mutiny.

"Everyone thought the world will spin five times faster," popular military blogger Alexander Sladkov wrote on Telegram about Putin's handling of the rebellion, according to a translation by Agence France-Presse. "Nuclear weapons? General mobilization? Declaration of war with NATO?"

Sladkov did go on to praise Putin for being "cool-headed," but others wrote that Russia's response to the rebellion made the Kremlin look weak.

"Where is the leadership of the defense ministry when an armed unit is approaching Moscow?" milblogger Yuri Kotenok wrote, according to Agence France-Presse.

Meanwhile, the popular Telegram channel Govorit TopaZ was more critical of Putin, taking issue with the Russian leader for calling Wagner fighters "traitors."

"Putin made a terrible bloody mistake, one-sidedly calling 25,000 rebellious soldiers of the Russian army traitors, until recently these were the people who were the only unit continuously on the offensive on the most difficult sector of the front," Govorit TopaZ wrote Sunday on Telegram.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.

Prigozhin's brief mutiny ended a day after it began. Peace was brokered on the agreement that Kremlin charges would be dropped against Prigozhin if he agreed to go into exile in Belarus. On Tuesday, Putin held a ceremony at the Kremlin for soldiers and law enforcement officials, thanking them for averting a "civil war."

The Battle_Z_Sailor Telegram channel mocked the security forces present at the ceremony, writing that those tasked with protecting Russia were frightened by Wagner rebels but later "put themselves forward for state awards."

Also taking exception to the ceremony was Govorit TopaZ, which wrote: "In the Kremlin now they are literally rewarding and praising people who had nothing to do with the bloodless solution of the conflict."

Notably direct in his criticism of the situation regarding Wagner has been Igor Girkin, an ex-Russian army officer who is now a popular military blogger. In a Monday Telegram post, he demanded Prigozhin's execution, saying it was "necessary to preserve Russia as a state."

After Putin addressed the country Monday about the failed mutiny, Girkin further expressed his disappointment with the president.

"I haven't seen anything more pitiful in the performance of a man remotely resembling the president," Girkin wrote on Telegram. "The confusion continues."