Russia's Z-Bloggers Have Turned On Army Leaders and Kremlin For Failing War

When you've lost the mil-bloggers...

Until recently the most enthusiastic - and often bloodthirsty supporters of Russia's Ukrainian invasion were the community of unofficial home-grown bloggers, know as mil or z bloggers. But as the war continues to go badly, the bloggers have begun to criticize not just tactics or individual commanders, which they had tacit permission to do, but are now mentioning the war itself, and even Putin. This suggests that the truth about the conduct of the war is widespread and that its former supporters are now expressing outrage as the prospect of winning has turned to fear of unsatisfactory compromise, let alone effective defeat. JL

 
New Voice of Ukraine reports:

Russian Z-bloggers (also mil-bloggers or voenkors, until now Russia's most enthusiastic Ukraine invasion cheerleaders) have begun to criticize the command of the Russian army the war itself and even Putin. From the start, they could criticize tactics and commanders but never the Kremlin, nor the idea of the war. (But) posts critical of the Kremlin have appeared from dozens of Russian z-bloggers over the past two weeks. They write that the Russian offensive has reached a dead end, mobilization is pointless in current conditions, the command is hiding real losses, 80-90% of  casualties occur before the battle even starts as fighters die on the way due to Ukraine's drone attacks, while officials are stealing and vacation at resorts. They also resent the blocking of Telegram and VPNs. By purging Z-channels, the Kremlin reduced the risk of criticism, but lost strategic feedback." 

Z-bloggers have begun to criticize not only the command of the Russian army but also the war itself and even its organizer, Vladimir Putin, NV explains with the help of experts.

From patriotic frenzy and various "goyda" chants to despair and pessimism — this is the typical scenario for the history of wars waged by Russia. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine does not appear to be an exception.

The Russian dictator hosted military bloggers at the Kremlin nearly three years ago, on June 13, 2023. These two dozen people behind Telegram channels were the main source of frontline news for millions of Russians at the time. 

Putin shook their hands, thanked them for the "truth," and promised to listen.

Among the dictator's guests was Alexey Chadayev, then a court political scientist for United Russia, a man from the Kremlin's corridors who actively and regularly praised Putin.

Chadayev, who now heads Ushkuynik — one of the key centers for the development of frontline Russian UAVs — wrote on his Telegram channel two years and nine months later, on March 30, 2026: "We must honestly admit: we have indeed built feudalism. In a feudal society, there are no rights, only privileges."

The mood swing did not only occur in the mind of this professional propagandist. Posts critical of the Kremlin have appeared from dozens of Russian "voenkors" or milbloggers — from niche frontline bloggers to the million-subscriber channel run by the so-called "Rybar" — over the past two weeks.

They write that the Russian offensive has reached a dead end, mobilization is pointless in the current conditions, the command is hiding real losses, and officials are stealing and vacationing at resorts while fighters die on the way to the front. The "voenkors" also mention censorship — the blocking of Telegram, VPNs, and "whitelists" of websites. They note that awards go not to those who fight, but to those who "sit correctly."

"They are writing things that were absolutely unthinkable before," Ivan Filippov, an exiled Russian journalist and author of the analytical Telegram channel "Na Zzzzzapadnom fronte bez peremen," where he has tracked the Russian pro-war environment since the first day of the full-scale invasion, told NV.

"They are telling the authorities themselves: you are creating a pre-revolutionary situation in the country with your own hands, and we don't understand why you are doing this."

Divided 'truth-tellers'

Russian "voenkors" wrote faster, more candidly, and more extensively than official Russian Defense Ministry briefings in the first months of the great war. However, they never criticized the Kremlin, nor the idea of the so-called "special military operation" (SMO) itself.

"They could criticize tactics and commanders. The only forbidden topic was the war itself," Andrii Sukharyna, head of analytics at Join Ukraine, an organization researching Russian information operations, described the rules of the game in the Russian blogger space at the time.

The "stars" of Russian propaganda were formed back then. Semyon Pegov, founder and host of the WarGonzo channel, was one of the first bloggers to receive accreditation from the Russian Defense Ministry. Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, became one of the most popular Z-authors. Yevgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for the Rossiya 1 TV channel, is a state prize laureate. They had millions of subscribers, advertising, and interviews on federal channels.

Putin personally received and awarded them in June 2023. Pegov was given the Order of Courage, and Kots received a seat on the presidential human rights council. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov publicly assured that Putin needed "alternative sources of information." 

FSB officer Igor Girkin-Strelkov, former commander of pro-Russian forces in the Donbas and a symbol of the early Z-community, was the first to criticize Putin in the summer of 2023. Ultimately, after attacks on Putin's gymnast mistress Alina Kabaeva, he received a four-year prison sentence.

Then Andrey Morozov, a volunteer and frontline blogger known by the pseudonym "Murz," had an "epiphany." He published data indicating that about 16,000 Russians died during the assaults on Avdiivka in February 2024. Chief Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov demanded Morozov be punished the next day. The blogger was eventually ordered to delete the post under threat of blocking supplies to his unit. Murz did so, and later committed suicide.

Another telling incident occurred in that same year of 2024: Dmitry Lisakovsky, call sign "Goodwin," an experienced UAV operator who had been fighting in the Donbas since 2014, recorded a video appeal with his colleague Sergey "Ernest" Gritsai, claiming their commander was covering up drug trafficking in the regiment. The "truth-tellers" were transferred from drone operators to assault infantry the next day; both were killed on Sept. 13, 2024. Russian Defense Ministry conducted a review and found the command's actions "generally correct."

These stories became increasingly common in the unofficial pro-Kremlin Russian media space. Corruption in regiments, pensioner fighters in assaults, commanders at resorts—all this leaked into Telegram channel posts and garnered hundreds of thousands of views. At the same time, official media were losing their audience, sometimes hemorrhaging millions of "fleeing" readers.

The Z-environment split. Some channels — Kots, Poddubny, Pegov — received awards, accreditations, and cushy spots, effectively turning into another branch of the official media vertical. Others — niche frontline bloggers, medics, volunteers — remained in conditional opposition.

The majority of large Telegram channels in Russia either switched to rebroadcasting the official line or lost a significant portion of their audience by 2025, according to Join Ukraine estimates: WarGonzo's subscriber count dropped by almost 60,000, and Kots's by 50,000.

Moreover, the key mission of Z-bloggers—to increase trust in military information—ultimately failed, the Join Ukraine study noted.

Today, a significant portion of Russians do not trust either television or pro-Kremlin Telegram channels — the very ones considered the "voice of truth from the front" just three years ago.

"By purging the Z-environment, the Kremlin tactically reduced the risk of uncontrolled criticism, but strategically lost a feedback channel," Join Ukraine noted.

Expert Sukharyna formulated this conclusion even more succinctly: "The mood thermometer is effectively broken."

Almost an epiphany

While the Russian Defense Ministry reports daily on "liberated" villages and strategic initiative, "voenkors" paint a bleak picture of everyday army life.

Z-writer Alexey Sukonkin writes bluntly on social media: Russian commanders are spending the newly arrived soldiers in an old-fashioned way - as a renewable resource, and no mobilization will save the situation with such an approach. 

Between 80% and 90% of Russian army casualties occur before the battle even starts — fighters die on the way due to Ukrainian drone attacks, according to the author of the Russian channel "Voenkor Kotenok."

Alexander Khodakovsky, a collaborator and founder of the so-called "Vostok battalion," now warns readers on social networks: a return to large-scale attacks will increase Russian army losses eightfold, as most fighters simply will not reach the frontline.

The front is effectively at a standstill, but admitting this officially means reporting it to Putin. The author of the anonymous Telegram channel "Sokrat na terrikonah" articulates the dilemma as follows: "Refusal to advance is inevitable. If this is not done consciously, the advance will stop on its own. Fate leads the wise and drags the foolish."

There are many disgruntled "voenkors," and they write independently of each other. However, this was not the case a year ago.

The frontline reality and massive losses are now impossible to hide, Filippov explained.

"Putin does not know how to back down," the journalist added. "Neither Valery Gerasimov [Chief of the Russian General Staff] nor Andrey Belousov [Russian Defense Minister] will risk their heads for an honest report. It's easier for them to report successes and bury soldiers by the thousands."

The number of critical posts by Russian "voenkors" has steadily grown recently, from three to five a day in early March to 12-15 by the end of the month, according to experts. And among those dissatisfied with the state of affairs are authors with large audiences: "voenkor" Alexander Sladkov with 730,000 readers, or his colleague "Voevoda Veshchayet" with 167,000, and dozens of smaller channels. The themes recur: personnel failures, army corruption, senseless losses, and internet censorship.

Z-community is an unstructured entity without a central decision-making body, which is why its mood is a true indicator of the state of affairs in the Russian army and society, Filippov believes.

However, people from Putin's inner circle — "patrons" of the bloggers who are using them to test the waters on how society would react to talks about ending the active phase of the SMO — may be behind some of the loudest statements from "voenkors," according to Sukharyna.

"Bloggers could not express such harsh opinions solely on their own," the expert explained. The majority of these "patrons" are closer to the FSB than to the Defense Ministry, in his opinion.

What awaits those "voenkors" who go too far?

Ilya Remeslo, a blogger with long-standing ties to the Kremlin, answered this question by his own example in March 2026. He published a series of posts calling the war "hopeless" and Putin an "illegitimate president and war criminal." The next evening, Remeslo was hospitalized in Psychiatric Hospital No. 3 in St. Petersburg — the same one associated with punitive psychiatry in the USSR.

On the verge of a rebellion?

Filippov lists the factors that will continue to "fuel" the dissatisfaction of "voenkors": Roskomnadzor is systematically breaking the internet, inflation is rising, and the Kremlin is ready to risk a new wave of mobilization. This is exactly what Russian "frontline" Telegram channels write about most actively, thereby shaping the mood of millions of readers. 

People with combat experience, horizontal ties, and a sense of betrayal are capable of moving to illegal forms of self-organization against the authorities and the Kremlin itself if the war ends unsuccessfully for Russia, according to the findings of the Join Ukraine study. Even if the probability of this scenario is not high, it cannot be completely ruled out either.

"2026 will be extremely interesting," Filippov said regarding this. "But it's better to watch from a safe distance.