Fitness videos, makeup tutorials — and now a viral manifesto on the growing problems plaguing Russia.
A celebrity influencer’s direct warning to Vladimir Putin that his people might “snap” has prompted a rare acknowledgment of public criticism from the Kremlin.
The 18-minute Instagram critique was a surprise pivot for Victoria Bonya, a Monaco-based Russian influencer whose videos are better known for their lifestyle tips. But the former reality television star struck a chord in Russia, where disquiet has been bubbling for months over issues including a sweeping crackdown on the internet.
An increasingly sluggish economy and a lack of battlefield progress in Ukraine are also adding to the Kremlin’s woes.
“There is a big, fat wall between you and us, the ordinary people,” Bonya, 46, said in a direct address to Putin earlier this week as she accused top officials of being too afraid to tell him the truth.
She rattled off to her 13 million followers a number of problems that she said were facing Russia — the major curtailing of digital freedoms, mass extermination of livestock in Siberia, deadly flooding in the southern Dagestan region and the oil slick drifting off Russia’s Black Sea coast.
People are hurting, she said, blaming officials she said were withholding the real state of affairs from Putin.
“People will get tired of being afraid,” she said in the video, which has now been viewed more than 26 million times and liked by 1.4 million. “They’re being compressed like a spring, and one day, that spring will just snap.”
Bonya stressed that she still supports Putin, calling him a “very strong” politician. “But you don’t know about many things,” she said.
Her criticisms were put to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday. He denied suggestions that Putin is unaware of the full extent of problems in Russia.
"No. It is not so," he said. "Putin is the head of state, and his powers means he deals with the widest range of issues on the agenda."
This idea of a "good tsar" being let down by his officials is far from new. But Bonya was among a legion of influencers who were viewed as apolitical, and her plea appears to have hit a nerve given the repressive atmosphere that has made such open criticism rare in Russia.
Whether she realizes it or not, Bonya is strengthening opposition discourse, Russian political analyst and former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov told NBC News.
Some have accused Bonya of helping the Kremlin by employing the time-old narrative that deflects blame from the leader. But Gallyamov said she was part of what he called the gradual brewing of a prerevolutionary situation in Russia.
“I am not saying she is a revolutionary, that would be strange. But revolutions are not carried out by revolutionaries, that’s the paradox. Revolutions are made by the likes of Bonya,” he added.
While such an eventuality feels a distant prospect, there have been signs of bubbling discontent for months.
The Kremlin’s shutdown of mobile internet, effective ban on the popular Telegram app and enforced shift to a state-sponsored “national messenger” — all in the name of security — fueled a rare call for protests alongside public ridicule aimed at authorities.
It comes against the backdrop of an ailing economy, battered by four years of war with Ukraine and rising prices. On Wednesday, Putin lamented two months of economic contraction, demanding answers from his officials about why the economy was performing below expectations.
Last week, Russia’s state pollster VCIOM reported a drop in Putin’s job approval rating to below 70% for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. On Friday, VCIOM reported another percentage point drop to 66.7%.
The Kremlin has taken notice of Bonya’s address to Putin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, saying it touched on “very resonant topics,” and that work was under way to address many of them.
Bonya subsequently took to Instagram, crying and saying she did not know what fate awaited her. She thanked Peskov and said she was happy that “our voice was heard.”
Bonya said in Instagram stories that even though she lives in Monaco, she is “risking everything” by speaking out as she has business in Russia and comes back regularly. “If there is any blow against me, then it will be a blow against the people,” she said.
Since Bonya’s manifesto, two other female media personalities voiced similar opinions.
A blogger known as Ayza supported Bonya in a since-deleted video, telling her 4 million Instagram followers that “a president should know what’s going on in his country” and that she “genuinely hoped” Putin was just not in the know.
Ekaterina Gordon, a media personality and blogger with nearly 2 million Instagram followers, accused a “fifth column” of fostering public anger to “undermine people’s trust” in Putin. In the video, she nonetheless raised some of the same issues as Bonya did.
Others were less supportive of Bonya’s arguments.
Ivan Zhdanov, a close ally of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said he suspected the Kremlin was behind Bonya’s address, saying it “deflected the blow from Putin.”
Most of Russia's prominent pro-Kremlin voices were dismissive.
Propagandist TV host Vladimir Solovyov appeared to suggest that Bonya should be investigated, disparaging her for “pointing things out to the commander-in-chief from somewhere in Monaco” on his show Wednesday.
Influential military blogger Alexander Kartavykh slammed what he labeled “Remeslo 2.0,” a reference to Kremlin loyalist Ilya Remeslo who unexpectedly denounced Putin as “a war criminal and thief” last month, ending up in a psychiatric facility days later.
And fellow war blogger Yuri Podolyaka accused Bonya of being used by “Western masters” to destabilize Russia during difficult times.
