Until his death, filmed live, at the end, Vladlen Tatarsky will have been a man of social networks. On April 2, on a video filmed on a smartphone in a bar in Saint Petersburg, where he organized a conference evening, we see this ultranationalist blogger, dressed in a black t-shirt bearing the inscription “Donbass”, standing in the middle of the audience, admiring the plaster bust bearing his likeness that a young woman has just given him. Suddenly, a blinding gleam, then a plume of smoke obscures everything and the video cuts out. A bomb, placed in the statue, has just exploded. Vladlen Tatarsky is dead.
Immediately, the Russian authorities accuse Ukraine. The young woman is quickly arrested. She says she was manipulated by people claiming Ukrainian services. “Staged”, we reply on the side of kyiv. Ukrainian intelligence would have nothing to do with the case, which would be the result of a settling of scores sponsored, perhaps, by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Both versions are plausible. Because Vladlen Tatarsky was not a simple ultranationalist, but one of the most eminent representatives of what are called in Russian “voenkor” – war correspondents. “In the 2000s, they were simple journalists working in traditional media, explains Russian political scientist Andrei Pertsev, one of the best connoisseurs of the mysteries of power in Moscow. They followed the Russian army in conflict zones.” With the emergence of social networks, they are starting to make a name for themselves by launching their own channel on Telegram, this messenger that looks like a social network, on which there is absolutely no moderation. In 2014, the annexation of Crimea and above all, the start of the war in the Donbass, upset the situation.
A new type of “war correspondent”
Handed over to more or less informal armed groups, eastern Ukraine is seeing the emergence of a new type of “war correspondent”, independent of the traditional media. On the spot, fighters and separatist mercenaries, nationalists and adventurers attracted by the war improvise bloggers of the trenches, most often equipped with their only smartphone. Vladlen Tatarsky was one of them. A former convict who was serving a prison sentence in Donetsk for bank robberies, he had joined the separatist armed forces, once pardoned by the new authorities.
To these soldier-bloggers are quickly added a new type of “voenkor”, channels specializing in the production of tactical and strategic maps and analyses. The Rybar channel, for example, is run by a former member of the Russian Ministry of Defense who has never set foot on the front line… but who is nevertheless also qualified as a “war correspondent”. “The voenkors constitute a very heterogeneous category of people whose common point is to write on social networks about the war, and to have a pro-Russian, often ultranationalist point of view”, summarizes Andrei Pertsev.
For this small galaxy of bloggers, analysts and journalists, the start of the Russian invasion in 2022 is a divine surprise. It responds to their thirst to see Russia do battle with the Ukrainian and Western enemy. Above all, it explodes their audience. It now has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, even over a million for the most popular. The role of the “voenkor” then changes dimension: they become important levers of influence, and each faction of Russian power wants to have its own. “For example, Tatarsky was clearly a sympathizer of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, considers Andrei Pertsev. Rybar is rather protected by the Ministry of Defense, while conventional media correspondents, such as Pegov and Poddubny, are affiliated with the propaganda services of the Kremlin.”
Much appreciated by the “voenkor”, Evgueni Prigojine gives it back to them. He maintains many of them and makes them the central element of his ascent. “Prigojine has his objectives: to obtain more influence, to attract more public money, analyzes Andrei Pertsev. He is in conflict with Sergei Shoigu [le ministre de la Défense], which made it lose very lucrative markets. So he uses the voenkor as a megaphone to ridicule the Ministry of Defense and make the generals look incompetent.”
Criticisms against the official discourse
Because the tone of the “voenkor” has become more and more critical over the Russian military failures. “The plan for our special military operation was completely idiotic, based on false information”, enraged Vladlen Tatarsky on November 11, shortly after the abandonment of Kherson by the Russian army. “We should send the Russian generals to the front with socks and an assault rifle”, suggested a little earlier Gray Zone, a Telegram account fed by a senior officer of the private military company Wagner. Criticisms that carry, while the official communication of the Ministry of Defense becomes more and more lunar, calling for example the rout of Kharkiv a “return to more advantageous positions” and claiming the destruction of three times more planes of fighter than the Ukrainian air force has!
The more the discrepancy between the official tone and the news from the front becomes glaring, the more the speech of the “voenkor” becomes credible and popular. “The voenkors are beginning to supplant television in the battle for pro-power audiences,” political scientist Ivan Davydov observed last November in an article published by the Carnegie Center.. Now they are the ones who set the trend: criticism of the Ministry of Defense for its indecision, its retreats, its abandoned cities and the failures of mobilization come from them. The all-powerful television had to adapt. They have no choice: they have to deal with this new aggressive monster.” It is also rumored that Vladimir Putin appreciates these personalities and their outspokenness. Twice, he will stage with “voenkor”, and in will even invite many to the ceremony marking, on September 30, the annexation of the Ukrainian regions controlled by the Russian army.
Except that on the front, the Russian army continues to retreat. And the critics of the “voenkor” are becoming more radical. Some are even beginning to attack Sergei Shoigu, a very close friend of Vladimir Putin. Mid-October is the backlash. Rumors announce that a criminal investigation will be opened against the most aggressive of the “voenkor”. “It was probably a bluff to scare them off, organized by the Ministry of Defense and the FSB, judge with hindsight Andrei Pertsev. A way of making them understand that they would really be targeted if they continued on this path. Some tried to mobilize their community, to cry out for repression, but they soon stopped. Then they started choosing their words more carefully.” Vladlen Tatarsky didn’t lower his voice. Enough to fuel speculation about the sponsor of the bomb that killed him on April 2 in a bar belonging to … Evgueni Prigojine.