Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The milblogger sphere is getting fed up with so-called “beautiful reports” from the military top.
Russia’s own hardline war bloggers have long served as loyal cheerleaders for the invasion of Ukraine.
Some of the ultranationalist Telegram channels that shape Russian pro-war opinion have turned their fire on the officers running the war, blaming senior commanders for the setbacks around Lyman in the eastern Donbas.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank that tracks the war daily, said in its assessment on Tuesday, September 29, that Russian ultranationalist milbloggers, pro-war commentators who post frontline analysis on Telegram, are openly discussing what they call a “pervasive culture of lying” inside the Russian military, and blaming it for Ukraine’s recent gains in the Lyman sector.
The criticism has sharpened as Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps publicized the third phase of Operation Vivaldi, a counteroffensive around Lyman in northern Donetsk Oblast.
On September 28, the corps said the phase had cleared roughly 51 square kilometers, liberated Nove, Ridkodub and Katerynivka and restored full control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka, all north of Lyman.
Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, the corps commander, said the operation had killed or wounded around 2,000 Russian soldiers and taken more than 250 prisoners.
‘Beautiful reports’ up the chain
The milbloggers’ complaint has its own label. They call the practice “beautiful reports,” meaning exaggerated or false battlefield accounts that Russian commanders send up the chain of command, which they argue should be “absolutely forbidden.”
ISW’s September 26 assessment already flagged that the “pervasive culture of lying within the Russian military is facilitating Ukrainian successes north and northeast of Lyman,” and the think tank says the theme has broadened in the days since, as each new Ukrainian gain around Lyman becomes public.
Anatoly Radov, a Russian pro-war blogger, wrote on September 6 that “the Ukrainians have been conducting a counteroffensive for 2.5 months, which our command is trying not to notice,” in comments carried by the Kyiv Independent.
Kremlin-linked channels acknowledge Ukrainian pressure
Even Rybar, a heavyweight pro-war channel widely seen as close to Russia’s Defense Ministry, has conceded ground.
By mid-September, Rybar reported that small Ukrainian groups were reaching the Zherebets River east of Lyman, contradicting rosier mapping in other Russian pro-war media.
ISW writes that the internal criticism matters because mainstream Russian outlets, which follow the Kremlin’s line, cannot air these command-accountability concerns.
The milblogger sphere is one of the few channels through which the Russian pro-war audience hears about frontline setbacks.
The Lyman gains rested on more than deception. In analysis published September 29, Euromaidan Press cited ISW’s finding that Ukraine had “likely neutralized Russia’s drone defenses north of Lyman” before sending armor into Vivaldi’s third phase, using long-range strikes to disable Russian drone crews and electronic warfare systems.
