Russians are finding it harder and harder to conceal their dissatisfaction and fatigue about what President Vladimir Putin has turned their country into.

The blocking of WhatsApp and then Telegram and increasingly frequent internet shutdowns didn’t just spark frustration from isolated outcasts or suspicious social groups, but practically the entire country. State propaganda is no longer enough to keep this discontent down. Even loyalists like blogger Ilya Remeslo or former “people’s governor” Pavel Gubarev are calling their former idol in the Kremlin a war criminal and accusing him of coming to power by accident, respectively.

Then came the Instagrammers, with their millions of followers.

The first to speak on behalf of the people was former reality TV star Viktoria Bonya, who has an audience of 13 million and lived in Monaco for many years. 

She began her 18-minute video address to Putin by saying that everyone fears him — the people, artists, bloggers — because there is a “huge thick wall” between them and him. 

Then, she ran through the current Russian news agenda: from flooding in Dagestan and amendments weakening protections of endangered species, to the mass slaughter of livestock in Novosibirsk and internet blockages.

Bonya’s speech was, of course, designed to help Putin, not challenge him. It included assurances of support, mention of “our boys” fighting at the front, and declarations of love for Russia and its people. Bonya blamed the wall on a conspiracy by State Duma deputies and other grandees, arguing that because Putin does not use the internet and requires........

© The Moscow Times