Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been promptly followed by strict censorship laws which have completely shattered the already cracked realm of Russian independent media. As the authorities blocked their websites and accounts on state-controlled platforms, many media outlets that refused to follow along with Russia’s official propaganda on the war “fled” to Telegram, one of the rare messaging and blogging platforms which remains uncensored both in Russia and abroad. These days, new Russian media initiatives tend to arise as Telegram-first projects exactly for this reason.

Yet despite the widespread popularity of Telegram among the Russian anti-Kremlin and anti-war movements, personalities and media, it is not their channels that take the lead in the Telegram popularity charts. Instead, according to TGStat data, Russians tend to subscribe to news channels and chats run by anonymous teams, state media, politicians and (war) reporters who back Russia’s invasion, even though these personalities can otherwise freely operate in the Russian media landscape.

By looking into Telegram data gathered by TGStat, a project that gathers Telegram statistics, The Fix created a database of the nearly 90 most popular chats and channels on Russian-language Telegram that spread and produce current affairs content. We measured “popularity” primarily by the number of followers, but also the reach and quotability of their posts. By March 15, 2023, we came up with these findings.

The sentiment of the analysed chats and channels was measured by evaluating their content for war-related topics, derogatory language against Ukrainians, encouragement of Russians to fight and help Russia win the war, notions that Russia can “beat” Western sanctions, mentions that Russia’s invasion was “necessary”, as well as euphemisms and the use of Russia’s official war-related vocabulary (like “special operation”)

Popular anonymity…

A whopping third of the most popular accounts of the Russian Telegram are run anonymously, amassing a total amount of more than 27 million subscribers (out of a total of nearly 72 million subscribers gathered by the nearly 90 of the most popular Russian current affairs Telegram channels).

All of them post pro-invasion content and most of them focus on delivering military news from the battlefield. While some of them offer commentary on the conflict, others post clips and pictures from the ground, which are sometimes claimed to shared with them by Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

… and state media

The popularity of these anonymous accounts is followed by widely-known Russian media companies, which gather an audience of about 15 million readers. About a quarter of this audience belongs to state-owned media companies, such as the RIA Novosti and TASS news agencies.

Their agenda is backed up by other privately-owned media which support the invasion, like the general news media outlet Readovka, as well as some tabloid outlets which might report less about the war itself but use vocabulary that implies a pro-invasion stance.

A venting space for reporters …

Next by popularity are private accounts of pro-Kremlin media figures such us the Russian state TV host Vladimir Solovyov, whose YouTube channel, Solovyov Live, got blocked last March. On his Telegram channel (about 1,3 million subscribers), followers can dial into the live streaming of his TV programme (which has also recently replaced Euronews channel on Russian TV), as well as read his own or re-shared commentary on the war.

“Germany has never learned its history lesson. The Nazis and Banderites merged into a single Russophobic ecstasy. German tanks on Russian soil. Germany has de facto entered the war. How else is it possible to regard such a demarche? So we’ll have to repeat it [Russian victorious war against Germany]. And this time we will not leave Berlin,” he, for instance, commented on Germany’s decision to send tanks to Ukraine.

His popularity is tightly followed by military correspondents, known as voenkory, who in their Telegram channels offer more commentary than they’re allowed to air in their field reports for state TV, radio or printed media. Channels of those voenkory who got into The Fix’s most popular channels list amass an audience of nearly 6 million.

Veteran reporter Semyon Pegov, known as Wargonzo on Telegram (nearly 1,3 million subscribers), has among other things posted claims about the presence of satanists in the Ukrainian army, and has reiterated conspiracies on Ukraine turning into the training ground for Western military.

… and politicians

Alongside the channels run by media figures, there is a smaller group which in total enjoys roughly the same popularity among Russian Telegram users: pro-Kremlin politicians. The absolute leader in this category is the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov with more than 3 million subscribers, whose prominence for chilling threats against anyone who steps on his way and his encouragement and showing off Chechen soldiers and fighters has only escalated with the start of the war.

“Today we are fighting for Holy Russia! We are fighting for a great country that is being reborn based on faith in God and humanity. For those who understand this, both death and life should be equally loved. For me, my death is as beloved as my life. When you realise that, being on the front line, you will never leave your positions and your fighters even when all enemy tanks are approaching, because you have to defend the values sent down by the Almighty, then you are absolutely calm about all the events that are taking place,” reads one of his recent posts.

Other popular politicians-Telegrammers are the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev (whose Telegram statements are outrageous even by Russian propaganda standards), the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova, and Denis Pushilin, the Russia-installed head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Where is the opposition?

According to The Fix analysis, among nearly 90 most popular news-related channels and chats in the Russian “Telegramsphere” with an audience of about 72 million, more than two thirds openly support the invasion. About 10% of the channels offer relatively neutral content on the war, that is, they try to avoid condemning the war itself by zooming into a different niche (for example business news) and rather indirectly report about the negative consequences of the invasion, while a very tiny category, which mainly focuses on regional news, seems to ignore the war completely.

Only seven take a firm stance against the war, amassing an audience of something more than 6 million subscribers – that is less than 10% of all the subscribers of the most popular channels. This category is led by the Latvia-based Meduza with about 1,2 million subscribers and closely followed by the private channel of the veteran reporter Alexander Nevzorov and the editor the explanatory journalism initiative Redaktsiya Alexei Pivovarov, both of whom have been proclaimed foreign agents in Russia.

The independent TV station Dozhd TV, which has recently gathered international headlines for losing its broadcasting licence in Latvia due to an aired statement that was mistakenly interpreted as supportive of Russia’s war against Ukraine, has about 440,000 subscribers on Telegram.

True, some of them have a major following elsewhere, such as Dozhd TV or Redaktsiya, which both have about 3.7 million subscribers on YouTube, one of the rare international social media platforms that has not (yet) been banned or criminalised in Russia. However, even though Russians condemning the war and opposing the current Russian regime have since the start of the full-scale invasion launched and developed many media (and often Telegram-only) initiatives that try to either offer objective reporting or anti-war commentary, the number of their followers still tend to be minor compared to the massive pro-invasion environment that surrounds them in Telegram.

These figures go in line with the latest statistics released by the independent Russian polling research organisation Levada Centre, which notes that in February 2023, more than three quarters of Russians mostly agree with the invasion.

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