{"id":7875,"date":"2026-04-17T05:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T05:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/7875\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T05:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T05:25:07","slug":"russian-influencers-break-their-silence-on-putin-vladimir-vladimirovich-people-are-afraid-of-you-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/7875\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian influencers break their silence on Putin: \u2018Vladimir Vladimirovich, people are afraid of you\u2019 | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

She doesn\u2019t wear a uniform or have access to the Kremlin\u2019s corridors of power, but she has 13 million followers on Instagram, a social network banned in Russia. \u201cVladimir Vladimirovich, people are afraid of you,\u201d begins Viktoria Bonya in one of her recent posts, in a surprising direct appeal to Putin. \u201cBetween us \u2014 ordinary people \u2014 and you there is an insurmountable wall, and I want to tear it down. No governor will tell you this because they are afraid of you,\u201d she continues, addressing the president. The former Dom-2 (the Russian version of Big Brother) contestant and epitome of extreme luxury, who now lives abroad, is a symbol of the lifestyle that millions of citizens in Russia desire and only the elite enjoy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not the only one appealing to Putin: other Russian influencers \u2014 and companies like Vkusno i Tochka, the chain that acquired McDonald\u2019s restaurants \u2014 have broken the silence in recent days, offering criticisms or suggestions to the country\u2019s president. The internet blackout<\/a>, not the invasion of Ukraine, was the final straw. And the opposition suspects that the phenomenon is more a response to a power struggle between different factions.<\/p>\n

Aiza, a presenter and singer, has joined the chorus of criticism. \u201cCan you think about the people who are suffering, who are on the brink of disaster? Please, how much can this cost? How much money do the [State Duma] deputies have to steal to have enough?\u201d she says in another reel directed at Putin. \u201cI sincerely hope that our president is truly unaware of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an old Russian tradition, celebrities are exonerating Putin with a phrase repeated in Slavic literature for centuries: \u201cIf only the Tsar knew!\u201d This whitewashing of the Russian leader comes precisely as his popularity is plummeting due to the economic crisis and the internet blackout. According to the Kremlin\u2019s polling center, VTSIOM, Putin\u2019s approval rating among citizens has fallen to its lowest level since the start of the war: he maintains a comfortable 67.8%, but for the first time it has dropped below 70%.<\/p>\n

Neither the constant bombing of Ukrainian cities, nor the hardships suffered by Russian border cities like Belgorod<\/a>, nor the detention of opposition figures, many of them ill, nor the massive spending on the war while much of the population struggles to make ends meet \u2014 none of this is addressed in the videos. The protests have erupted because of the government\u2019s intrusion into the last bubble for Russians: social media.<\/p>\n

The criticism, in any case, has gone viral, representing one of the few open confrontations with the Kremlin from apolitical sectors of Russian society since the harsh repression of anti-war protests. That was in 2022. Since then, civil society has remained virtually silent, with the courageous exception of the wives of military personnel<\/a> who have stood up to the Kremlin by demanding that their husbands return home.<\/p>\n

On the ultranationalist flank, hardly anyone has raised their voice since the death of the powerful Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin<\/a>, in 2023. And those who have spoken out have paid for it: earlier this year, military blogger Ilia Remeslo was committed to a mental institution for criticizing the conduct of the war.<\/p>\n

Bonya, Aiza, and other celebrities like Ida Galich and Ekaterina Gordon use a very measured tone to blame the authorities for not properly informing Putin. They also don\u2019t mention the invasion of Ukraine among the problems Russians face, even though Bonya, a model, presenter, and actress, previously described the sanctions against Russia for the war waged against the neighboring country as a \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The internet blackout imposed by Russian security services is one of the five problems Bonya cites. The others are the mass slaughter of livestock in the Novosibirsk region (due to alleged outbreaks of pasteurellosis and rabies that the authorities have not substantiated), flooding, and other environmental problems such as the ongoing spills from two old oil tankers sunk in the Black Sea in 2024 (which recently left some 200 dead birds on the beaches of Anapa), and the new regulations that allow the hunting of endangered animals. \u201cThere won\u2019t be a swimming season this year. They\u2019re lying to us,\u201d the model criticizes.<\/p>\n

Fracture in the elite<\/p>\n

The Russian opposition is debating whether these criticisms are sincere or simply being promoted by a faction within the Kremlin \u2014 the political wing, led by Sergey Kiriyenko, one of the heads of the presidential administration \u2014 to try to curb the other, the Federal Security Service (FSB), in its attempt to seize control of all state mechanisms. For Kiriyenko, whose mission is to show Putin that the people adore him, Telegram is an essential tool; and therefore, restricting access to it \u2014 something imposed by the FSB \u2014 is a mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same points: Putin is unaware of what\u2019s happening, he needs information from the people, officials are hiding the truth from the leader\u2026 This can only mean one thing: they received orders (and the manual) from the Kremlin, from Kiriyenko\u2019s department,\u201d political scientist Ivan Preobrazhensky stated on the social network X. He warned the public: \u201cWhatever the goals of Kiriyenko\u2019s department may be, you must remember one thing: the well-being of you, the ordinary people, is NOT among them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ivan Zhdanov, former director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation of Alexei Navalny<\/a>, the dissident who died in a Russian prison in February 2024, echoed this opinion.<\/p>\n

Others see it a different way: \u201cI completely disagree that Bonya and Aiza were given a task by the Kremlin. Both are spirited and active, and besides, they live outside the country,\u201d counters Lyubov Sobol, an opposition politician and former member of Navalny\u2019s foundation. \u201cI don\u2019t know if they really think Putin isn\u2019t aware of this or if they understand that speaking out like this is the only relatively safe form of protest, but the fact that they mention Putin\u2019s name in connection with these issues is already a step forward. Thank you, girls,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

In her video, Bonya emphasizes that the authorities \u201care squeezing people like a spring.\u201d \u201cAnd one day that spring will snap,\u201d she warns. \u201cPeople,\u201d she adds, \u201care Googling how to leave Russia.\u201d However, she also doesn\u2019t want to appear as a battering ram against the government: this Wednesday she published another video in which she states: \u201cI love my country, I\u2019m not going to betray it. I\u2019m not an opposition figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonya lives abroad and risks never returning home. She first criticized the government in a reel published in March, in which the singer Sati Kazanova discussed with her the courage it takes to protest against the Kremlin. \u201cVika, my dear, do you know why we artists remain silent here in Russia? We have families and parents too,\u201d Kazanova said. \u201cWhen all rights and limits are violated and there is no other option, people have to fight back,\u201d Bonya replied.<\/p>\n

A controversial Russian deputy, Vitaly Milonov, a proponent of laws against the LGBTQ+ minority<\/a>, has called Bonya a \u201cDubai prostitute\u201d and urged her to return to Russia. \u201cThis is unacceptable for someone in power who is obligated to protect citizens, not harass them,\u201d the influencer responded, adding that she is considering filing a class-action lawsuit with other women against the politician.<\/p>\n

The fast-food chain Vkusno i Tochka, one of the big beneficiaries of the sanctions against Russia for the war (which allowed it to acquire McDonald\u2019s restaurants), has also joined the criticism of the government: \u201cPeople, without receiving orders, raised more than 500 million rubles [for those affected by the floods in Dagestan, according to the Agentsvo agency] because they could not ignore the misfortune of others, and they did so through the \u2018banned\u2019 social networks that [the authorities] have been trying to portray as dangerous for years,\u201d it denounced.<\/p>\n

Russian authorities banned Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter in 2022 at the start of the invasion of Ukraine, and in recent months have blocked WhatsApp and Telegram. \u201cAt the same time, tens of billions [of rubles] are being spent blocking, restricting, silencing, and labeling this and other networks as undesirable [which can even lead to prison sentences for using them],\u201d adds the Vkusno i Tochka account.<\/p>\n

Even the Kremlin\u2019s satellite party, New People (Novie Liudi), a personal project of Kiriyenko, has positioned itself against the internet blackout, offering free Wi-Fi to the population. Underlying this is the fear of the Kremlin\u2019s political faction that discontent will flow toward a party facing a historic opportunity to resurge after three decades of subservience to Putinism: the Communist Party of Russia.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She doesn\u2019t wear a uniform or have access to the Kremlin\u2019s corridors of power, but she has 13…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5043,2421,5044,5042,93,5,102,5045,21,386],"class_list":{"0":"post-7875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-alexei-navalni","9":"tag-facebook","10":"tag-influencers","11":"tag-instagram","12":"tag-kremlin","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-telegram","15":"tag-twitter","16":"tag-vladimir-putin","17":"tag-yevgeny-prigozhin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}