Putin goes after his own war cheerleaders
Roman Alekhin ran a fervently pro-war Telegram channel, advised a Russian governor and received military honours for fighting in Ukraine.
He was a poster boy for so-called Z-bloggers, self-styled social media war correspondents unflinchingly loyal to the ideology behind Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Then, the Russian state designated him a “foreign agent”.
The spectacle of Mr Alekhin’s dramatic rise and fall has spread fear among the online community that for nearly four years has apparently been allowed to critique and criticise the way the war is being fought.
While anti-war activists were jailed in their thousands, a growing movement of ultranationalist military bloggers (or “milbloggers”) appeared to be rewarded with money, status and influence.
But Russia watchers have long warned that the Kremlin’s tolerance of them would run out – that time might be now.
Keir Giles, a senior Russia analyst at Chatham House, is surprised it had not happened sooner. “This is the kind of dissent that, if it was directed at the political system, would have earned reprisals long ago,” he said.
The Z-blogosphere “was seen by some as a safety valve, a means by which critics could vent without actually challenging the overall state policy”, Mr Giles told The Telegraph. “That avenue has now been closed off.”
Mr Alekhin, who was accused of misusing funds he raised for Russian troops after he flaunted a new sports car and an expensive watch on social media, isn’t the first of the milbloggers to fall foul of the state he so ardently championed, as the regime’s machinery of repression begins to eat it its own.
Sergey Markov, a prominent pro-Kremlin pundit, was listed as a “foreign agent” in August, a label with Stalin-era connotations once reserved for Russia’s enemies but increasingly employed at will by the state apparatus to silence any criticism.
Experts believe that Mr Markov was punished for his open support of Azerbaijan amid the collapse of Baku’s relations with Moscow. It marked a mighty fall from a once-trusted propagandist for Putin.
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Markov had been featured on Russian state TV I believe.