Putin’s Propagandists Scramble to Respond to Celeb Critic

Some dissident Russian commentators have speculated that Bonya’s mutiny-lite was staged by the regime—perhaps as a distraction from the bad news on the war and the economy, perhaps as a prelude to liberalization-lite. But some of Bonya’s statements smacked of heresies far too dangerous to be planted: for instance, that if the government continues ignoring ordinary people’s problems, “they will eventually stop being scared—they’re being pressed like a spring, but one day this spring may shoot out.”

What’s more, the propaganda machine’s response to the video suggests something of a scramble to address an unexpected challenge. Kremlin bots and various loyalist media quickly went on the attack, accusing Bonya of pro-Ukraine sympathies and dubious morals. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made a cautious and vaguely conciliatory comment, saying that the video had been seen and that “a great deal of work [was] being done” on the issues raised in it. And chief propaganda jock Vladimir Solovyov unleashed a torrent of invective, denouncing Bonya as a “used-up skank” spewing garbage from her “filthy mouth” at the instigation of some nefarious forces.

More dramatics ensued. Bonya—who has lived in Monaco since 2011 but still has properties in Russia and can thus fear retaliation from the government—seemed to turn down the heat in a second video that tearfully thanked Peskov for his attention to her appeal and asked foreign and opposition media like the BBC and TV-RAIN to “leave her out of it”: “I’m not with you, I’m with the people and within the people,” she declared. (An easy target for gibes when you’re “with the people” from your luxury home in Monaco.) Her next video took on Solovyov and other pro-Kremlin men who had attacked her in misogynistic language—including Duma member Vitaly Milonov, who remarked that he had thought she was “some escort girl working in Dubai.” Not only did Bonya threaten to sue Solovyov and his fellow sexists for defaming women, she also posted an AI video of herself as Spider-Woman pummeling the offenders, with an invitation to other women to join her in a community of “warriors of light.”

The result, so far, has been a torrent of online indignation at Solovyov, who has backed off enough to suggest that he never meant to attribute any ill intent to Bonya—only to say that she was being used. Russian émigré journalist Tatiana Felgengauer suggests that this spat reveals the artificial nature of the controversy: public attention is now being diverted away from the Kremlin’s political and economic problem toward Solovyov’s sexist vulgarities and from the war in Ukraine toward gender wars within Russian culture. Yet Felgengauer also thinks that, whatever the purpose of Bonya’s declarations, the popular response—expressed, among other things, in the comments on her videos—shows a burgeoning discontent among the Russian public which feels that its concerns are being ignored.

Maybe Bonya’s display of defiance is merely a marketing ploy (she has her own line of cosmetics). Or maybe it’s a political ploy to channel that discontent into safe outlets—or even to undermine hardline propagandists like Solovyov and pave the way for a new perestroika. (Yes, that’s a theory too, articulated by podcaster and former TV-RAIN host Vyacheslav Shiryaev.) But, interestingly, it was none other but Solovyov who put his finger on the quiet radicalism of Bonya’s first video: the statement that the country is afraid of Putin, to the point of being terrorized into silence. Solovyov thinks—or, at least, says—that this is an enemy “narrative.” In fact, it’s a powerful truth—and one that positions Putin as a tyrant, not a strong leader. Coupled with an exhortation not to be afraid, it’s downright revolutionary. For that matter, even Bonya’s rebuke to the misogynist rhetoric emanating from some of her detractors can be seen as a larger challenge to the Putin regime’s aggressive macho ethos.

Will there be a Bonya revolution? No. But the Bonya rebellion, such as it is, could be a sign of shifting winds in Russia.