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Wagner, Prigozhin retain Telegram channels’ support
from BBC MONITOR 30
While uncertainty surrounds the future of the Wagner Group in Russia following its mutiny against the Russian armed forces in late June, Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group still retain the support of a large network of social media channels, Russian specialist Gleb Borschevsky writes.
Yevgeny Progozhin has been in the headlines as a mercenary boss ever since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the past decade, the Russian businessman also built a vast media empire: the Patriot media group, a cluster of eleven pro-Kremlin and far-right outlets linked to each other through shared traits, such as having identical physical addresses and founders.
He was also the founder and financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency, a “troll factory” behind numerous Russian disinformation campaigns, cyber-attacks and election meddling in the West, most notably in the US.
Prigozhin’s most prominent venture, the private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, has also amassed a huge presence on social media, most notably on the popular messenger app Telegram.
Following the abrupt end of Wagner’s mutiny against the Russian military and the shutting down of the Patriot media group on 30 June, traditional media outlets linked to Prigozhin ceased their operations.
However, Prigozhin and Wagner still appear to be supported by a sprawling network of Wagner-linked Telegram channels.
The following is an overview of these channels, categorised by the degree of their affiliation with Prigozhin.
Official channels
Throughout the many years of PMC Wagner’s existence, only two channels emerged that can be somewhat reliably linked to Prigozhin himself and viewed as “official” outlets of the company.
The first of them is the Telegram channel “Prigozhin’s press service” (1.3m subscribers), run by the press service of Prigozhin’s catering business Konkord (Concord), which was reportedly shut down on 30 June.
The channel was set up in November 2022 as an outlet for statements “personally” from Prigozhin. Since then, it has hosted nearly a thousand of his statements, including many made through voice recordings.
Konkord’s press service also used to have a page on popular Russian social media website VK (VKontakte). However, the page has since been blocked by Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor.
The second “official” channel affiliated with Prigozhin is the so-called PMC Wagner Svodki (130,000 subscribers).
In January 2023, Svodki was promoted by Prigozhin as the official Wagner channel run by a “PMC Wagner employee with the call sign Peresvet”, who would “provide information that is of interest to Russians on a daily basis”. It was also promoted by other Wagneraffiliated accounts as “the official channel of the Wagner Group”.
However, the first posts on the channel only appeared on 23 June, shortly before the start of Wagner’s mutiny. Throughout the rebellion, Svodki made numerous posts in its own voice in support of Wagner.
Affiliated channels: communities...
Despite its somewhat official status, Svodki is neither the oldest nor the most popular account related to Wagner.
The oldest and most prominent one, Grey Zone (516,000 subscribers), was set up in October 2019. Prior to that, it existed as a now-deleted Instagram page.
Grey Zone is a self-described “mercenary community” run by a blogger known as “Pyatisoty” (“cargo 500”, Russian military slang for a deserter).
From its inception, Grey Zone was part of the same media project as the channel Reverse Side of the Medal (RSOTM, 386,000 subscribers). Much of their earlier content reported on the activities of Russian mercenaries in Africa.
However, in July 2022 the channels split up, with RSOTM being run by a person known simply as “Admin”.
Since then, Grey Zone has gradually taken an increasingly pro-Wagner stance, gaining notoriety for its affiliation with the company. It was the host to two graphic videos depicting alleged killings of ex-Wagner fighters seen as “traitors” to the group.
In a development that further linked Grey Zone to both Wagner and Prigozhin himself, Prigozhin said the latter of these videos was a “film” that had “another episode”. Only hours after the original video showing the purported killing was posted by Grey Zone, Prigozhin’s press service uploaded a video featuring the same man, wearing the same clothes and filmed in a similar location, who claimed he was “pardoned” by Wagner and allowed to live.
... and Wagnerbranded accounts
A large number of Telegram channels carry Wagner’s name and branding. But only a few of them have evidence pointing to their actual affiliation with the company.
One such channel is Razgruzka Wagnera (169,000 subscribers). A week before Wagner’s mutiny, Razgruzka hosted two videos showing Prigozhin attempting to submit a letter at a Defence Ministry office.
Razgruzka was supportive of Wagner during the mutiny, with some of its messages also being reposted by the official Svodki account.
After the mutiny ended, Razgruzka announced the resignation of one of Wagner’s commanders, Andrei Troshev, and reposted that Wagner had suspended the work of its regional recruitment offices.
That announcement was made by the channel Wagner Employment (34,000 subscribers) and was also reposted by Svodki.
Prior to the mutiny, Wagner Employment hosted various vacancies and recruitment information for Wagner. The information was on par with what had earlier been provided by Prigozhin himself.
Another affiliated channel is PMC Wagner AFU prisoners (11,000 subscribers), a channel promoted on several occasions by Prigozhin’s press service. The channel posts information on people it claims to be Ukrainian prisoners of war captured by Wagner.
There are also several popular Wagnerbranded channels that, however, cannot be reliably connected to Prigozhin or Wagner itself.
The most notable of them are the general-purpose account Wagner Orchestra (956,000 subscribers) and the self-proclaimed “official recruitment channel” Wagner Group (250,000 subscribers).
RIA FAN-related accounts
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s most prominent media outlet, the “news agency” RIA FAN, used to run a network of “military reporters” who largely reported on Wagner activities. Some of their reporting carried branding associated with the company.
These channels include Callsign Brus (Alexander Simonov, 180,000 subscribers), Military Correspondent Yarem (Alexander Yaremchuk, 84,000 subscribers) and Fotozarisovki (Stepan Yatsko, 7,000 subscribers)
These reporters continue to operate despite RIA FAN’s shutdown. None of them mention RIA FAN in their channel descriptions. Instead, Yaremchuk and Yatsko now post their payment details, asking for donations.
Some of them, like Simonov, have barely mentioned Wagner since the mutiny. Others, like Yaremchuk and Yatsko, continue to support the company.
One other channel affiliated with Prigozhin and RIA FAN, Cyber Front Z (118,000 subscribers), supported Wagner’s mutiny, but stopped posting shortly before Patriot closed.
It should be noted that RIA FAN’s “military reporters”, while prominent in Wagner circles, have never had a following as big as military reporters of traditional pro-Kremlin media, such as state broadcaster VGTRK’s Alexander Sladkov (1m subscribers) and tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda’s Alexander Kots (660,000 subscribers).
Pro-Wagner accounts
A number of popular accounts are not believed to be directly affiliated with Wagner, but have been supportive of the mercenary group in the past, propagating Prigozhin’s narratives.
War blogger Semyon Pegov (WarGonzo, 1.3m subscribers), for instance, recorded and published two lengthy interviews with Prigozhin, revealing some information about the company’s operations.
Pegov continues to mention Wagner in some of his posts, mostly in a neutral tone.
Other popular channels, like Operation Z (1.4m subscribers), Hooked on Z War (759,000 subscribers), Military Informant (630,000 subscribers) and war blogger Yuri Kotenok (430,000 subscribers) follow a similar pattern - previously explicitly supportive of Wagner, they now report on the group in either a neutral or a cautiously positive tone.
