Authors

Alina Parker¹;  ¹ University of Massachusetts Amherst,

Discussion

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the social-media and messenger app Telegram (TG) skyrocketed in its political importance in Russia. New censorship laws and the dearth of information about the “special military operation” made Telegram a vital source of information for both war supporters and opponents. Millions of viewers turned to the TG channels of military bloggers, combatants, volunteers, and analysts, which sprouted in large numbers and ramped up their content production. The pro-war channels (often referred to as Russian “patriots”) and anti-war channels (lumped together as “liberals”) are segregated from each other, forming two different public spaces on Telegram, with few links to each other. 

The pro-war, “patriotic,” segment is larger than the “liberal” segment and is especially important to study—it represents the most active supporters of the war, who often feel (and state) that they are more invested into this war than Russian government officials. This active investment makes the pro-war “patriots” both a resource and a threat for Putin’s political regime. On the one hand, these TG speakers and their audiences contribute to war-related volunteer efforts, articulate ideological justifications for the war, or fight on the frontlines. On the other hand, these actors are often critical of the Ministry of Defense and its poor management of the war. Armed and resentful, the pro-war “patriots” are potential rebels, who can turn against the Kremlin and start a mutiny, like the Wagner Group did in June 2023. After the mutiny, the Kremlin has stepped up its efforts to co-opt, control, and repress pro-war activists and their grassroots networks.

Aside from the tension between the Kremlin and the pro-war “patriots,” there are also plenty of disagreements within the “patriotic” community, which represents a variety of competing national and political ideologies. United by their investment into the war against Ukraine, these patriots are divided by their visions of the ideal form of government for Russia (monarchy, socialist state, democracy), of the Russian nation (an ethnic-Russian state, a multinational class-based community, an empire with Russians as a titular nationality), and the desirable objectives for the war (control of the Donbas, regime change in Kyiv, or reconstruction of the USSR). 

Using a media-ethnographic approach, this paper attempts to map the pro-war patriotic space on Telegram—identify ideological affinities and shared professional activities of its users and pinpoint the main divisions and sources of conflict among them. The paper also briefly outlines the origins of this political community (dating them back to the post-Soviet 1990s and beyond) and traces the transformation of this community since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.