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We explore how Russian authorities were forced to allow a measure of freedom to critique them to war advocates on Telegram — and how they are now striving to control this freedom.
Just a few days after the full-scale invasion began, Russian propaganda television lost its capacity to effectively serve the informational needs of its own military, following the failure of its anticipated blitzkrieg. The portrayal of the war by official Ministry of Defense reports, delivered by spokesperson General Igor Konashenkov and broadcasted consistently on television, began to diverge significantly from the reality observed by those involved in the conflict. At a certain point, official statements became a source of ridicule for anyone attempting to find even minimal logical consistency within them.
In this context, maintaining the role of television and official reports as the sole sources of information through repressive measures risked demoralizing the army and war supporters, potentially pushing them toward Western or opposition media for the truth. Yet the Kremlin critically needed these fervent militarists to sustain its prolonged and large-scale aggression. Thus, a need for an alternative propaganda outlet emerged — one that would provide a bigger dose of truth while aligning with the Kremlin’s agenda, answering questions like “Who’s to blame?” (“corrupt, deceitful generals, but not Putin!”) and “What should be done?” (“continue the war, but more effectively!”).
This alternative media took the form of propagandist Telegram channels that offered stories about the conflict different from official accounts. In Russia, these are referred to as the “Z-segment.” NATO analysts also use the term “Z channels” when discussing Russian military bloggers and other authors who disseminate information on the conflict that deviates from the official narrative. The Kremlin was reluctantly forced to grant these authors limited freedom of expression. Here, Z-bloggers can make statements for which civic activists or independent journalists in Russia might face imprisonment under laws prohibiting “discrediting the army” or “spreading fakes.” Consequently, this segment’s audience includes not only those directly involved in the conflict or its supporters but also others seeking an alternative to official Russian television propaganda, seeking a semblance of pluralism.
Meanwhile, official Russian television propaganda continued to serve passive, uncritical war supporters. According to the Levada Center, as of March 2024, television remains the primary source of information for 65% of respondents in Russia. At the same time, the audience for Telegram channels as a news source is at 24%, stabilizing after a rapid rise in spring and summer 2022 (sample size: 1,628 respondents, margin of error: 1.5 to 3.4%). This contrasts with the situation in Ukraine, where television has long ceded its dominance to Telegram as a source of war news.
Back in November 2022, Detector Media discussed the nature of these Z-correspondents, an essential component of Z-Telegram. Here, we delve further into the informal rules, unique features of Z-Telegram, and the Kremlin’s ambivalent policies regarding it.
Criticism as Advantage
The Detector Media Research Center conducts systematic monitoring of the largest Z-channels by audience reach. The entire Russian Z-segment on Telegram presents a colorful panorama of propaganda channels that often promote opposing viewpoints on specific topics. This segment includes hundreds of highly varied channels, with subscriber counts ranging from a few thousand to over a million. Some of these channels decline over time, while others rise to prominence in viewership.
The Z-segment operates with a loose network structure. A post from a major Z-channel often becomes news in its own right within this ecosystem, sparking supportive or hostile commentary from other channels. Smaller channels typically follow the rhetoric of the flagship channels, and large channels with hundreds of thousands of followers often repost content from smaller channels and each other. These connections increase the reach and influence of even the smaller channels in the segment. According to calculations by Novaya Gazeta Europe, if a Russian reader at the start of the full-scale invasion randomly navigated through reposts from one channel to another, they were far more likely to end up on propaganda channels than on similarly sized opposition or Ukrainian channels. However, methodological analysis of reposts reveals strict network indicators not for the entire Z-segment, but only for certain clusters of friendly channels.
The administrators of these channels may be military personnel or volunteers, so-called military bloggers, backline enthusiasts, or anonymous individuals who could, beyond these categories, include people close to specific Russian officials or ministries. Some channels receive compensation from the authorities through a shadow system of state fund distribution for propaganda purposes, while other channels operate based on alternative motivations.
These channels maintain and grow their diverse audiences through various methods. They may publish exclusive frontline news or videos, as well as comment on news from other sources. What unites these channels is their overall support for the war against Ukraine and opposition to the West. However, when it comes to evaluating the overall progress and specific events of the war, or the actions of certain officials, these channels may significantly diverge, both among themselves and over time, depending on circumstances at any given moment.
A defining trait of the Z-segment is its distancing from the “one-dimensional” propaganda typically seen on television, focusing instead on critical perspectives, which from the outset has been the segment’s main appeal. This critical stance aligns with audience demand and remains its primary draw. For channel authors, most of whom are based in Russia, this criticism has limitations. First, it must remain generally within themes indirectly outlined by the Kremlin. Second, it must avoid offending anyone influential at the top. Each channel navigates this dilemma individually.
As a result, criticism within this segment usually targets issues like inadequate military supplies, inefficient resource allocation, lack of troop rotations, corruption among officials and generals, and false reports and presentations submitted to higher authorities. Criticism of Putin himself and his military-political decisions is carefully avoided. Channels compete for audiences within these bounds.
However, in moments of crisis for the Russian information space, such as the Ukrainian army’s advance in the Kursk region in August 2024, this cultivated self-censorship can falter. Channels must weigh whether to risk losing audience trust by joining unrealistic, “triumphant” reassurances seen in television news or to sound the alarm. Such critical moments often lead to significant audience gains.
For instance, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Kursk operation was the channel Dva Mayora (Two Majors). From the start of the offensive, it maintained an alarmist tone, even panic-posting on August 10 about an alleged, but non-existent, Ukrainian breakthrough in the Belovsky district of the Kursk region “several dozen kilometers deep.” The channel’s posts related to the events in Kursk averaged around 200,000 views throughout the year, but by the end of August, this figure had soared to nearly half a million views, later settling at just over 300,000 in the following months. Moreover, within a month after the beginning of the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk, according to the Telemetrio service, Two Majors grew its subscriber base by over 1.5 times — from 740,000 on August 5 to about 1.17 million by September 5. This follower count has since remained steady.
Changes in the average number of views for posts on the Two Majors Telegram channel from October 21, 2023, to October 19, 2024. Source: Telemetrio
Meanwhile, one of the flagship channels of the Z-segment, Readovka (with over 2.7 million subscribers), although it gained some followers in August, struggled to retain their attention, experiencing a drop in post views. For Readovka, downplaying the successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and avoiding sharp criticism of the military command were typical at the time. As a result, with the onset of the AFU’s Kursk offensive on August 6, the channel began to lose active readers. Its growth resumed only at the end of August, following the stabilization of the situation in the Kursk region, when the channel’s optimistic tone no longer clashed with the realities facing the Russian army on the front.
Changes in the average number of views for posts on the Telegram channel Readovka from June 6, 2024, to October 19, 2024. Source: Telemetrio
The active audience of the Z-segment generally rises noticeably during major battlefield developments, especially during failures of the Russian army — whether in Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall of 2022 or in the Kursk region in the summer of 2024. However, retaining the audience outside these periods becomes challenging. Crossing the unspoken “red lines” concerning criticism of the leadership might offer a solution to this issue.
For instance, the channel Alex Parker Returns has consistently gained subscribers over the past year by using ironic criticism, even of Putin himself. The channel’s success likely stems from the author’s residence outside of Russia. In one post, he confirmed the information shared by Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko about his residence in Canada.
Gradual growth of the audience on the Alex Parker Returns channel from October 20, 2023, to October 20, 2024. Source: Telemetrio
Another approach to engage an audience is to blend moderate criticism of the military command with an exclusive, extremist rhetoric. The DSHRG Rusich channel, in addition to criticizing the command and promoting its neo-Nazi views, systematically advocates for the execution of Ukrainian prisoners. It, too, has managed to steadily gain subscribers over the past year.
Gradual growth of the audience on the DSHRG Rusich channel from October 20, 2023, to October 20, 2024. Source: Telemetrio
From the Movements of the AFU on the Front to the Movements of Officials in Z-Telegram Posts
Since 2022, some of the primary antagonists for much of the Z-segment have been former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov. In addition to direct criticism of Gerasimov, there is even more frequent, abstract criticism directed at the “staff generals” in general. Condemnations of vaguely defined “traitors” within the headquarters have even taken on an ironic, meme-like character within the Z-community. “Biden from the G[eneral] S[taff], when will they finally f*ck you up?” asks the channel Battle_🅉_Sailor, which has over 60,000 subscribers. The Kremlin, meanwhile, shows little reaction to such jabs, even from the large, million-follower channels. Personnel changes, if they occur, come only after a significant delay following peaks in criticism of military leadership during times of crisis. This was the case with the dismissal of Minister Shoigu and the arrests of his deputies Timur Ivanov and later Pavel Popov. It’s difficult to determine with certainty whether criticism in the Z-segment played a decisive (or even meaningful) role among other factors leading to these decisions.
Moreover, Z-channels don’t just criticize individual officials; they also suggest replacements, reflecting the clan-based divisions of these channels among Russia’s political elites. For instance, several channels were quick to praise the rumored — later debunked — appointment of presidential aide Aleksey Dyumin as coordinator of security forces in the Kursk region. Dyumin has often been mentioned in Russian media over the last decade as a potential successor to Putin, including by experts from the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation.
Generals Ivan Popov and Sergei Surovikin are also favored figures within the Z-segment. Calls to reinstate them to army leadership have appeared on channels with massive audiences, such as WarGonzo:
“Why not, even if belatedly, start applying General Popov’s experience, who was able to stall and pulverize the striking force of the Ukrainian counteroffensive on one particular front? And then, there’s comrade Surovikin, whose work in establishing an effective defensive line is hard to overestimate.”
General Ivan Popov commanded Russia’s 58th Combined Arms Army, which operated on the Zaporizhzhia front during the Ukrainian offensive in that sector in the summer of 2023. He was later dismissed and in 2024 was arrested on criminal charges of large-scale fraud. Sergei Surovikin commanded the Joint Group of Forces in Ukraine at the end of 2022, including overseeing the withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson. The Economist wrote about Surovikin’s close ties with Prigozhin and the Wagner PMC. Following the Wagner rebellion, The New York Times reported that he was detained, and although he was later released, he was removed from military command.
“Goodwin and Evil Puzik”
One of the notable stories in recent weeks, illustrating how the Z-segment of Telegram operates, is the reaction to the deaths of two Russian “volunteers” Sergei Gritsai (”Ernest”) and Dmitry Lysakovsky (”Goodwin”). Both managed the UAV department in Russia’s 87th Separate Regiment. According to Igor Girkin (as relayed in letters from a Russian penal colony and published on his Telegram channel), Lysakovsky had been involved in combat and drone operations since 2014, while Gritsai was a career lieutenant colonel who, at Girkin’s urging, joined the Russian army as a volunteer in 2022. Shortly before their deaths, both men recorded videos explaining that their UAV unit was being disbanded, with all members reassigned to assault infantry as part of a plan to “neutralize” them following a conflict with their regiment commander, Igor Puzik, whose callsign is “Evil.” They claimed the conflict with Puzik arose because he allegedly covered up drug trafficking among his subordinates.
After Gritsai and Lysakovsky were indeed “neutralized,” their farewell videos and the surrounding circumstances stirred widespread discussion in the Z-segment of Telegram. Former Odesa resident Volodymyr Hrubnik, convicted of terrorism and now involved in supplying the Russian army, published on his Telegram channel (which has nearly 200,000 subscribers) correspondence with Goodwin, in which Lysakovsky accused Commander Puzik of planning to surrender positions to the Ukrainian army and eliminate troublesome individuals. Propagandist Anastasia Kashevarova, with over 250,000 Telegram followers, along with many other commentators, noted that this case is not unique: “Traitors, cowards and scoundrels are destroying the Russian fighter... And this case is one of thousands I keep talking about — specialists, the disabled, the wounded, etc. are sent on a one-way trip to assault, and in some cases they don’t even make it to the assault, a death in vain. Targeted killing of our own.”
At the same time, another group of propagandists, loyal to the state and directly tied to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, began defending Puzik and, in classic propaganda fashion, circulated various narratives of what happened — from “the deceased were at fault” to the usual “it’s not so simple.” On the Telegram channel of prominent Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, posts appeared celebrating Puzik’s “combat achievements.” Solovyov also condemned military bloggers’ channels for spreading fake reports about Puzik allegedly fleeing the regiment’s location. This rumor had been posted by some of the largest Z-channels, including Readovka, which has 2.7 million followers. Later, without mentioning Goodwin and Ernest, Solovyov declared on his show that orders from command must not be questioned.
The Russian Channel One promptly aired a news segment showcasing the KatyaValya Foundation, which raises funds for the Russian army and is managed by Igor Puzik’s wife and her sister. Goodwin and Ernest had previously accused this foundation of embezzling donations.
Despite these developments, parts of the Z-community continued to hope for an investigation and punishment of the “responsible parties.” Recognizing the persistence of such cases, hopes were placed on the “higher leadership,” particularly on Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, appointed in May 2024. Belousov publicly instructed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov to investigate the deaths of Goodwin and Ernest.
“The system will not give justice just like that, without a fight. This requires political will. I would like to hope that Andrey Removich Bilousov has it,” wrote one Z-channel with 24,000 followers.
Another channel with 350,000 subscribers stated that “this situation exposed a large festering abscess in the army system, when a commander treats a soldier like his dog or property.” Notably, acknowledging these systemic flaws did not lead to criticism of the individual who has overseen this system’s construction over more than 20 years — Vladimir Putin.
A fresh wave of outrage erupted after preliminary results of the investigation “ordered by Belousov” were publicly disclosed by one of the most well-known military bloggers, Alexander Kots, who has 600,000 Telegram followers. According to him, Russia’s Ministry of Defense, in conjunction with the FSB, concluded that the deployment to assaults was justified, that allegations of drug trafficking were supposedly unfounded, and that there was no information about Puzik facing any accountability, although several of his deputies were reassigned.
“In simple terms, they found scapegoats and buried the issue. They also buried the fallen guys under a pile of crap,” summarized one Z-channel with 40,000 followers. However, even with this, the Z-Telegram segment had to come to terms and continue supporting Putin and his system, which destroys even its most ardent defenders and perpetuates the war against Ukraine.
To Prohibit or Permit
Criticism is essential to the existence of the Z-segment on Telegram — and simultaneously poses a risk for its authors. Channel authors face a dilemma that parallels the Kremlin’s challenge in regulating them. On one hand, there is a need to provide a controlled outlet for “patriotic” discontent over the course of the war, as the absence of such an outlet could lead to social unrest. On the other, this criticism must never undermine Putin or the war itself. Thus, the Kremlin tries to keep Z-Telegram on a leash, curtailing the freedom it allows.
For example, on November 1, 2024, a new law will take effect in Russia, requiring owners of channels on messengers and social media with over 10,000 followers to submit personal information to Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state censorship agency. For unregistered channels, the law imposes restrictions on posting ads, having their posts reshared by other channels, and disseminating information about possible funding methods for the channel or its owner. The Z-community interpreted these new restrictions as directed at them. Z-blogger Roman Saponkov, with an audience of 100,000 on Telegram, voiced the mixed anxieties of his field, where ostentatious compliance with the law is mixed with concern for one’s own safety.
“Of course, we’ll register; nobody’s arguing that. And I’m sure, at first, nothing will happen to anyone. But sooner or later, the system will start swallowing and grinding, even if you slow it down and roll it back every time in manual mode…” commented Saponkov on the new law.
Just a few sentences later in the same post, Saponkov’s compliance fades, and he opts to hide behind anonymity instead:
“It’s easier to set up an anonymous channel. To rename our channels, put them on a separate encrypted phone, use a SIM card from Indonesia, ads in crypto, and to hell with fundraisers. Let them run around, prove things, set precedents. Isn’t this just insanity?”
Another legislative trigger for the Z-segment was the law passed on July 24, 2024, banning the use of gadgets on the front lines. The law provides for disciplinary detention of military personnel for disciplinary violations, including the use of smartphones capable of accessing the internet, transmitting photos and videos, and sending geolocation data. By the third reading, it was clarified that this rule applies to “those participating in the special operation in Ukraine or certain regions of Russia, as well as in areas where martial law has been imposed.”
Z-bloggers again saw the law as an attempt to restrict their access to critical information from the fighters on the frontline. However, they were forced to maintain loyalty in their outcry. As a result, the community’s main public argument against the law centered not on curtailing freedom of speech but on the routine use of gadgets, including Telegram, for combat work. On July 31, a week later, the State Duma formally responded to the criticism by adding an amendment to the law allowing the use of gadgets when performing official duties. However, this version still left room for selective enforcement of the law.
There are also informal ways to convey the limits of permissible criticism of the authorities. On October 5, 2024, Yegor Guzenko, the author of the relatively critical channel Trinadtsaty (Thirteenth), with an audience of over 300,000, was arrested under a Criminal Code article on the use of violence against a government representative. Part of the Z-segment expressed solidarity, and Guzenko received numerous posts of support. Meanwhile, another radical Z-critic of Russia’s military-political leadership, Igor Girkin, has been under arrest since July 2023. Wanted by Ukraine and the Netherlands for terrorism and involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17, Girkin is serving a sentence in Russia under an extremism charge for his Telegram posts. Outrage over the perceived injustice of Girkin’s sentence, announced on January 25, 2024, was primarily expressed by smaller Z-channels with audiences under 100,000. Larger channels were more reserved and ambiguous in their assessments, in particular, on the day of the verdict, they ritually condemned Girkin for insulting the president. At the same time, the previously mentioned channel Two Majors, with over 500,000 followers, argued that Girkin would have been of far greater use on the frontline than behind bars.
The Russian government also signals the boundaries of permissible criticism and creates the illusion of accepting criticism through face-to-face meetings with selected Z-bloggers. Putin himself held several such meetings, including one with 18 Z-authors on June 13, 2023. Similar meetings are more regularly organized by officials from Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Although only a small portion of the broader Z-community is granted access to these interactions, other channels may take cues from how these “favorites” adjust their content and degree of criticism. These chosen figures promote such meetings within the community as a means to address and resolve critical issues within the army, thus redirecting discontent in ways favorable to the authorities.
Therefore, despite its separation from official Russian propaganda channels, Z-Telegram plays a crucial role in disseminating propaganda. Most importantly, it broadens the informational spectrum offered by Russian television and other state-run media. Demand for the Z-segment and its audience grows noticeably during moments of crisis for Russian forces. In such times, the inadequacy of official Russian information sources to interpret the situation becomes even more glaring, and the audience turns to unofficial, critical “patriotic” sources for analysis.
However, two factors are essential for the overall direction of the propaganda. First, these channels must unequivocally support the war. Second, they must not contain any calls for actions against the government. Thus, despite their criticisms of the Kremlin, these channels help recruit new soldiers for the Kremlin’s army and attract fresh donations “for drones,” influencing “patriotic” Russians who neither watch nor trust Russian television.
It is also evident how the Kremlin doles out limited freedom to Z-channels and, with varying success, manages the risks created by this constrained freedom. The methods by which the Kremlin tries to control these channels reveal the core of its propaganda priorities: the inviolability of the supreme leader, Putin, support for the war, and hatred toward Ukrainians. As long as Z-channels adhere to these simple rules, they can function as one of the elements in the vast propaganda machine, even with occasional “departures” from the official narrative.
Main page illustration by Nataliya Lobach
