She does not wear a uniform nor enjoy access to the powerful towers of the Kremlin, but she has 13 million followers on Instagram, a social network banned in Russia. “Vladímir Vladímirovich, people are afraid of you,” begins one of her recent posts by Viktoria Bonia, in a surprising direct appeal to Putin. “Between us, the common people, 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,” she continues, addressing the president, the former contestant of Dom−2 (the Russian Big Brother) and epitome of extreme luxury life, who now lives abroad. She is the symbol of the lifestyle that millions of citizens in Russia desire and only the elite enjoy.
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She is not the only one appealing to Putin: other influencers —and Russian companies like the chain that took over McDonald’s restaurants, Vkusno i Tochka— have broken the silence of Russians in recent days and hint at certain criticisms or suggestions to the country’s president. The internet blockade, not the invasion of Ukraine, has been the last straw. And the opposition suspects that the phenomenon is more a struggle between different factions of power.
Aiza, presenter and singer, has joined the criticisms. “Can you think about the people who are suffering, who are on the edge of the abyss? Please, how much can this cost? How much money do deputies have to steal to have enough?” she states in another harsh reel (short video) addressed to Putin. “I sincerely hope that our president is really not aware of this.”
In an old Russian tradition, the celebrities excuse Putin with a slogan repeated in Slavic literature for centuries: “If the tsar knew!” This whitewashing of the supreme leader takes place precisely when the president’s popularity is falling due to the economic crisis and the internet blockade. According to the Kremlin’s polling center, VTSIOM, Putin’s approval among citizens has dropped to its lowest level since the start of the war: he obtains a comfortable 67.8%, but for the first time falls below 70%.
Neither the constant bombings of Ukrainian cities nor the hardships suffered by Russian border cities like Belgorod nor the detention of opponents, many of them ill, nor the massive spending on the war while much of the population cannot make ends meet. None of that is raised in the videos. The protests have erupted due to the government’s interference in Russians’ last bubble: social networks.
The criticisms, in any case, have gone viral, as they represent one of the few open confrontations with power from apolitical sectors of Russian society since the harsh repression of protests against the war. That was in 2022. Since then, civil society has remained practically silent, with the brave exception of military wives who have stood up to the Kremlin demanding their husbands return home.
On the ultranationalist flank, hardly anyone has raised their voice since the violent death of the powerful Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in 2023. And those who have done so have ended badly: earlier this year, military blogger Ilia Remeslo was institutionalized in a mental facility for criticizing the conduct of the war.
Bonia, Aiza, and other celebrities like Ida Gálich and Katia Gordon use a very measured tone to blame the authorities for not properly informing Putin. They also do not mention the invasion of Ukraine among the problems Russians suffer, although Bonia, model, presenter, and actress, previously described the sanctions on Russia for the war unleashed against the neighboring country as “genocide.”
The internet blockade, imposed by Russian security services, is one of the five problems Bonia cites. The others are the massive sacrifice of livestock in the Novosibirsk region (due to supposed outbreaks of pasteurellosis and rabies that the authorities have not confirmed), floods and other ecological problems such as the continuous spills from two old oil tankers sunk in the Black Sea since 2024 (which left about 200 dead birds on the beaches of Anapa a couple of days ago) and new regulations allowing hunting of endangered animals. “There will be no swimming season this year. They are lying to you,” the model criticizes.
Fracture in the elite
The Russian opposition debates whether these criticisms are sincere or if they are simply promoted by a Kremlin faction, the political sector —led by one of the heads of the presidential administration, Sergey Kiriyenko— to try to stop the other, the Federal Security Service (FSB), in its attempt to take control of all state mechanisms. For Kiriyenko, whose mission is to show Putin that the people adore him, Telegram is a basic tool; and therefore, restricting its access —something imposed by the FSB— is a mistake.
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“The same points: Putin is not aware of what is happening, he needs information from the people, officials hide the truth from the leader… This can only mean one thing: they received the order (and the manual) from the Kremlin, from Kiriyenko’s department,” says political scientist Ivan Preobrazhenski on social network X. And he warns the public: “Whatever the goals of Kiriyenko’s department, you must remember one thing: the well-being of you, the common people, is NOT among those goals.” This opinion is shared by Ivan Zhdanov, former director of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, the dissident who died in a Russian prison.
Others disagree: “I do not agree at all that Bonia and Aiza received a task from the Kremlin. Both are temperamental and active, and also live outside the country,” replies Lyubov Sobol, opposition politician and also former member of Navalny’s Foundation. “I don’t know if they really think Putin is not aware or understand that speaking like this is the only somewhat safe form of protest, but the fact that they mention Putin’s name in relation to the problems is already a step forward. Thank you, girls,” she adds.
Bonia emphasizes in her video that the authorities “are squeezing people like a spring.” “And one day that spring will snap,” she warns. “People,” she adds, “are searching on Google how to leave Russia.” However, she also does not want to appear as a battering ram against the government: this very Wednesday she published another video in which she states: “I love my country, I will not betray it. I am not an opposition member.”
Bonia lives abroad, and risks not returning home. She made her first criticisms of the government in another reel published in March, in which singer Sati Kazánova argued with her about the courage needed to protest against the Kremlin. “Vika, dear, do you know why artists remain silent here in Russia? We also have families and parents,” Kazánova said. “When all rights and limits are violated and there is no other option, people have to fight back,” Bonia replied.
A controversial Russian deputy, Vitali Milonov, promoter of laws against the LGBTI minority, called Bonia a “Dubai prostitute” and urged her to return to Russia. “This is unacceptable for someone in power who is obliged to protect citizens, not harass them,” responded the influencer, announcing that she is considering filing a class action lawsuit along with other women against the politician.
The fast-food chain Vkusno i Tochka, one of the big beneficiaries of the sanctions on Russia for the war (which allowed it to take over McDonald’s restaurants), has also joined the criticisms of the government: “People, without receiving orders, raised more than five hundred million rubles [for those affected by the Dagestan floods, according to the agency Agentsvo] because they could not ignore others’ misfortune, and they did it through the ‘forbidden’ social networks that [the authorities] have been trying for years to present as dangerous,” it denounced.
Russian authorities banned Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter in 2022, at the start of their invasion of Ukraine, and in recent months have blocked WhatsApp and Telegram. “At the same time, they spend tens of billions [of rubles] blocking, restricting, silencing, and labeling this and other networks as undesirable [which implies even prison sentences for their use],” adds the Vkusno i Tochka account.
Even the Kremlin satellite party New People [Novie Liudi, in Russian], a personal project of Kiriyenko, has positioned itself against the internet blockade, offering free wifi to the population. In the background, the fear of the Kremlin’s political faction that discontent will flow towards a formation that faces a historic opportunity to revive after three decades of vassalage to Putinism: the Communist Party of Russia.
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