The phenomenon of the Z-Telegram in the coverage of events in Ukraine

Chirkin Dmitrii Yur'evich ORCID: 0009-0008-3521-0258 Student, Department of Political Sciences, Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin 51 Lenin Street, Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region, 620083, Russia 4ir_dim@mail.ru Kolmakov Andrei Dmitrievich Student, Department of Political Sciences, Ural Institute for Humanities, Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin 51 Lenin Street, Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region, 620083, Russia a-kolmakov@inbox.ru

Skupov Mikhail Vasil'evich Student, Department of Political Sciences, Ural Institute for Humanities, Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin 51 Lenin Street, Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region, 620083, Russia skupovmikhail@mail.ru

          Introduction and relevance

Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, undoubtedly became a test for the entire Russian society. A geopolitical event of this magnitude could not but affect the perception of the world by Russian citizens and their plans for the future. In such extreme conditions, in order to achieve the strategic goals of the state, it is necessary to consolidate the efforts of all citizens and form a common picture of the world and foreign policy events. However, as practice shows ^{[1, Pp. 52-53]}, traditional methods of forming public opinion through traditional media (press, television, radio) can only form a tacit consensus in society regarding current events. People prefer either not to express their position, limiting themselves to tacit consent, or deliberately ignore the topic of the special operation. Against the background of the formation of passive consent among the majority of the population by traditional media with the goals of the state and the position on the vector of foreign policy, the phenomenon of new media, for example, Telegram, stands out. Telegram is a relatively anonymous messenger that allows you to create your own channels with the publication of information in them, and with the ability to unite users into these channels by interests or to coordinate their actions. This messenger is popular in Russia – by 2023 it had 75 million users ^[2]. The Telegram features described above (anonymity, the ability to create channels, ease of coordination) attract government representatives to the messenger, for example Dmitry Medvedev (https://t.me/s/medvedev_telegram ), as well as opposition figures, for example M. Khodorkovsky (https://t.me/s/khodorkovski )^[1]. An equally important feature of Telegram is the almost complete absence of censorship, which, together with relative anonymity, allows you to express quite radical positions in this messenger and publish radical content. Telegram in Russia has a reputation as a platform for free discussion and expression of a political position beyond the control of the state. This is evidenced by the history of the messenger. On April 16, 2018, Roskomnadzor, at the request of the FSB, announced the blocking of Telegram as a social network that did not meet the requirements of the Yarovaya law, in particular, it did not provide encryption keys to the special services ^[3] The blocking formally lasted until June 18, 2020, and eventually did not lead to the transfer of keys. Pavel Durov, the founder and owner of the network, argued that the refusal to transfer was technically impossible and, in his opinion, violated the Constitution of the Russian Federation with this requirement. All these events, as well as their results, led to a significant increase in the authority of Telegram as a network capable of storing personal data and user correspondence in sufficient confidentiality, which in turn led to an expansion of the target audience of the social network. It is this factor that has led to a fairly active audience, which is also targeted by Z-channels.

The second important feature of this social network is the lack of open censorship. This phenomenon is present in a number of Western social media networks (in particular, on Twitter, which was officially announced by its current owner Elon Musk ^[4]). This, together with the increased authority from the above-mentioned point, led to freedom of creativity, including for the authors of Z-channels, allowing them to acquire their own unique style, a niche in the information field and avoid political pressure from any side of the conflict.

The third difference is the text format. In the case of Telegram, the channel owner has the right to publish various posts with predominantly textual content, attaching pictures or video materials to them. The convenience of this format is that its volume is minimally limited (unlike, for example, Twitter), which allows you to choose a convenient format and volume of the message that the author wants to post to his audience.

The fourth is the numerous and working interactive elements. Unlike a number of other platforms, for example, YouTube hosting, which openly turned off negative reactions for an audience of bloggers ^[5], Telegram has developed a fairly large toolkit of various reactions in emoji format, allowing not only to express a positive or negative opinion, but also to concretize it by clicking on the desired smiley in the menu. This creates a real involvement of the audience in interacting with the author, demonstrating their attitude to him, which also attracts users and authors.

And finally, the difference between the majority of large social networks distributed in the CIS countries and among the Russian-speaking audience as a whole lies precisely in the fact that most of them lack a similar combination of positive factors that allow them to have sufficient authority, technical convenience and interactivity available from Telegram. Since sociological research shows that the youth of Russia (21-30 years old) he does not watch TV^[6], preferring more functional and offering much more content social networks, telegram channels and in particular Z-channels perform an important function -it is they who, in a competitive environment in an information field, convey to young people and older generations of users the information they need, allowing them not to "fall out" of the information field. At the same time, it is also important that their competition and freedom of action allow channels to choose the right topic of their activities themselves (for example, ideology, footage from the battlefield, general news, etc.), as well as the style of writing text content, which allows both the user to choose a channel and content that is strictly interesting to him, and the author to collect from he sees himself as a loyal audience for whom he will be engaged in creativity, which makes this format in this social network a very important phenomenon worthy of research.

One of the main tasks for Z-channels is to form an image of both the current government in general and its specific bodies and actors in particular. The image being formed is a set of basic associations that arise in the average respondent in connection with a particular figure or authority.

In the modern world, an image is formed primarily from the actions and words of a particular figure, or a representative of an authority, recorded and replicated by various media. Nowadays, social networks and the Internet in general are also actively involved in this process. It is in this vein that Telegram channels operate, autonomously forming points of view from each other and spreading it in a rhizome way. ^{[7, p.95]}

The study of Telegram channels is important due to the development of the phenomenon of information campaigns of hostile states in the 21st century. "The use of information and communication technologies is expanding to interfere in the internal affairs of states, undermine their sovereignty and violate territorial integrity, which poses a threat to international peace and security," the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation 2021 says. ^[8] It is extremely important to preserve the pluralism of opinions, while at the same time preventing threats to the national security of the state, its stability and development. In particular, research on social networks, their influence and mechanisms can help.

The role of Telegram in the context of its information coverage in Ukraine is very significant – hundreds of thousands of subscribers have both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian channels. The messenger gained such popularity for covering military operations due to the convenience of the interface, the convenience of downloading files, as well as due to soft censorship, which allows you to demonstrate fairly naturalistic footage of military operations. The topic of ITS coverage in social networks and messengers has already been discussed in articles by D.V. Bindas ^{[9, pp.130-131]} and S.V. Kurushkin and I.A. Bykov ^{[10, pp.44-45]}. Bindas's article touched on the topic of military communities in social networks using the example of the GreyZone group and the Reverse side of the medal channel in Telegram, which conducted educational work on military affairs, but little attention was paid to the topic of coverage of ITS in these communities. In the article by S.V. Kurushkin and I.A. Bykov, an attempt was made to typologize military bloggers – classic war correspondents, military experts and anonymous military commanders. The article points out the main features of war correspondents in Telegram: emotional coverage of their own, periodic disagreement with the official position on their own. However, in our article we will focus on the more general concept of "Z-channels". These channels are of interest as covering events in Ukraine from a pro-Russian perspective, but with some peculiarities. These channels got this name thanks to their unofficial symbols – the letters ZOV. The use of the letters Z and V in the names of accounts on social networks, messengers, and their public posting means demonstrates support for the special operation. The features of these Z-channels are that they broadcast information about the special operation with minimal delay, receive information directly from participants in hostilities, have open comments under posts, actively interact with the audience and raise funds to provide the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the People's Militia of the DPR and LPR.^[11] The key difference between Z-channels and the position on special operations demonstrated in the official media is the presence of direct speech by participants in hostilities, the proposal of alternative methods of achieving combat missions, without taking into account the strategic goals of the state, as well as criticism of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and their individual representatives for unsuccessful, according to the authors and users of the channels, decisions on the battlefield. These Telegram channels are of scientific interest as a prototype of a new political force that offers new political solutions and criticizes the current leadership of the country not from liberal, but patriotic and pro-Russian positions. Due to the gradual decline in ratings and trust in traditional media ^{[12, p.1]}, the role of Telegram in shaping people's political views will increase more and more, and the audience of Z-channels represents a sufficiently broad stratum of society to focus research on it.

Object, subject and methods of research

The object of this study is the Z-channels in Telegram. 7 Telegram channels were selected to study the specifics of the coverage of the special operation and the image of government agencies in the Z-channels:

1. The Fisherman (https://t.me/rybar ), 1110456 subscribers

2. WarGonzo (https://t.me/wargonzo ), 1293675 subscribers

3.      Turned on the war Z (https://t.me/voenacher ), 761188 subscribers

4. Yuri Podolyaka (https://t.me/yurasumy ), 2745490 subscribers

5.      Older than Edda (https://t.me/vysokygovorit ), 623964 subscribers

6. Vladislav Ugolny (https://t.me/zola_of_renovation ), 47,308 subscribers

7.      Mardan (https://t.me/mardanaka ), 225,808 subscribers

The number of subscribers was indicated at the time of 02/28/2023.

Posts in the specified channels from 01.12.2022 to 02.28.2023 were selected for analysis.

The choice of these channels was determined by the goal of obtaining an image of Z-channels from various representatives of the media environment, previously indicated in the text. As already mentioned, the type of activity of the author of the channel, his place of residence and professional biography affect the language of the channel and its content. To complete the sample, the most frequent categories of channel authors were selected – a soldier, a military blogger, a professional journalist on Telegram, a resident of the DPR. The "soldier" category includes the channel "Turned at war Z", the "military blogger" category includes "Rybar", "WarGonzo", "Older than Edda", "Yuri Podolyaka". The MARDAN channel belongs to the category of "journalist in Telegram". The channel Vladislav Ugolny belongs to the category of "resident of the DPR", since Donetsk is indicated on the VKontakte page as the city of Ugolny. The choice was also determined by the statistical indicators of the channels – the Rybar channel takes the 6th place in the citation index for June 2023, the WarGonzo channel takes the 4th place, Mardan takes the 26th place. ^[13] An equally important selection criterion was the number of subscribers – the channels Rybar, WarGonzo, Yuri Podolyaka have more than a million subscribers. The channel "Turned on War Z" has its own peculiarity – on average, 20 posts are published on the channel per day.

As a subject, we will consider the very influence of Z-channels on the information field, the formation of the image of self and power in the eyes of a mass audience.  For the study, 9 topics were formed that most comprehensively cover all sides of the special operation:

1.      Changes on the front line: offensive/retreat, attacks by the Russian/Ukrainian army, etc.

2. The life of soldiers on the front line: there are enough / not enough cartridges, shells, supplies, living conditions, etc.

3.      The political views of the authors: the search for enemies inside, proposals for changing political power, criticism of the political system, etc.

4. Collecting humanitarian aid

5.      Coverage of new weapons of Russia and Ukraine (tanks, drones, artillery, etc. - demonstration of their work and mentions of them)

6.      The foreign policy situation in Ukraine: arms supplies to Ukraine, statements by leaders of other countries close to Ukraine, visits to the leaders of these countries and their visits, etc.

7.      The foreign policy situation in Russia: visits of Russian figures to other states and vice versa, resolutions and treaties, as well as statements, resolutions and actions of countries and figures close to Russia or pro-Russian orientation

8.      Political statements by figures of Ukraine

9.      Political statements by Russian figures

Also, criticism of the Ministry of Defense, the military command and government representatives is often found in Telegram's Z-channels. In total, 5 areas of criticism were identified:

1. Criticism of tactical decisions (retreats, regrouping, insufficient bombing of the enemy, heavy losses)

2. Criticism of personnel decisions (generals have low command skills, the wrong person was appointed to a position in a new region, military bureaucracy, difficulty in communication, isolation of generals from the situation at the front)

3. Criticism of problems with the supply of the army (lack of things, sights, drones, food, etc., possible corruption in the army, nepotism in the headquarters)

4. Criticism of the diplomatic decisions of the authorities (too peaceful negotiations, incorrect agreements)

5. Criticism of government officials, commanders, media speakers, artists and cultural figures as individuals (holidays abroad, "soft rhetoric", accusations of working for the West, "defeatism")

The special operation is part of Russia's foreign and domestic policy, and politics has its own responsible persons. It is impossible to discuss the topic of a special operation without mentioning in a positive, neutral or negative way the military and political figures of Russia. The list of Russian political and military figures related to the special operation was compiled taking into account their representation in the media or the scope of their powers.

1.      Vladimir Putin is the President of the Russian Federation and Commander–in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

2. Sergey Surovikin - General of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces, was the commander of the Russian troops in the SVO zone.

3. Sergei Shoigu - Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation.

4. Evgeny Prigozhin - at the time of the study period, the head of the PMCS Wagner.

5.      Mikhail Mishustin is the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

6. Dmitry Medvedev is the head of the United Russia Party, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

7. Sergey Lavrov - Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

8. Alexander Lapin is a general of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commander of one of the directions of its military.

9. Igor Konashenkov - General of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Head of the Press Service and Information Department of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

10. Valery Gerasimov - General of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

11. Denis Pushilin is the head of the DPR.

12. Ramzan Kadyrov is the head of the Chechen Republic.

In the study, the main method was the content analysis method. A list of channels for consideration and key topics for study has been compiled.

Defining topics. As mentioned earlier, Z-channels can have a fairly diverse subject of their posts, but all this is united by a common theme of a special operation. First of all, this is a military-front theme – changes on the front line, attacks by the Russian or Ukrainian army, or videos of battles, the life of the military on the front line – their opinions and impressions about their situation and the course of the special operation, as well as the state of weapons and ammunition. Weapons and armored vehicles are important for conducting military operations, which can even change the state of affairs at the front – therefore, the topic of weapons is also often found in the channels. Also, the administrators of the Z-channels can collect humanitarian aid for the military or civilians. Such a large-scale military conflict as Russia's special operation in Ukraine cannot take place in a political vacuum, and therefore the channels consider foreign policy actions and statements by representatives of Russia and Ukraine: visits to other countries, resolutions and treaties, etc. Statements by representatives of countries close to Ukraine or Russia are also considered, since their statements and actions influence the course of the fighting: arms supplies, condemnation or approval of the actions of Russia or Ukraine, etc. Z-channels also pay attention to political statements by figures from Russia and Ukraine, as this can either strengthen or weaken the internal unity of these countries and influence public opinion. However, due to the concentration exclusively on the topic of special operations and combat operations, Z-channels may begin to offer their own alternative methods of achieving the goals of special operations, often forced and radical - such methods usually include the introduction of martial law in the country, criticism of the current political system for excessive "softness" and the search for "enemies and pests" in government, business and the people.

Z-channels, concentrating on special operations, in their perception can limit all the diversity of the state in the economic and political sphere exclusively to the map of military operations. Therefore, the publications of these channels often criticize the military command for military failures or insufficiently rapid pace of the offensive. The topic of corruption in the army, military bureaucracy and the isolation of generals from the situation at the front may also appear. The study also highlighted the topic of dissatisfaction of channel administrators with personnel decisions in the military command. Civilian officials are also criticized – the Foreign Ministry may be criticized for untimely or "treacherous" negotiations. Moreover, the authors of the Z–channels are already preparing their own ideology for the country, in which everything should work exclusively on the front line, both statements and actions. Therefore, Russia's military, political, economic and cultural figures are criticized for excessively "soft rhetoric", for foreign holidays, and for "defeatism".

Definition of the concept of "Z-channel" in Telegram

Coverage of the course of a special military operation is an extremely popular topic that can attract an audience to even the smallest news channel in a fairly short time. The special military operation is the most important geopolitical event of the last two years, and during these 2 years there has not been a single person left in Russia and in the near abroad who has not been affected by it. Russian citizens realized that the fate of their Homeland and their own well-being are influenced by the state of affairs at the front, which created an audience for Z-telegram channels. This name of the channels comes from one of the symbols of the Russian special operation on demilitarization and denazification in Ukraine, the letter Z. This letter became strongly associated with the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine after the appearance of numerous videos and photos with Russian military equipment with the letters Z,O,V. According to the comment of the Ministry of Defense, they mean "For victory" and "Strength in truth", respectively. ^[14] However, in the media sphere, the letters Z and V have become associated with the support of the Russian army and special operations. These signs began to be applied to municipal transport, used at patriotic concerts, and many civil servants, such as governors, began to add these letters to the name of their Telegram channels (Yugra Z officially^[15]) But the presence of the letter Z does not make the channel of the governor of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug a Z-channel. Z-channels specialize in covering the progress of a special military operation. Changes on the front line, the assessment of weapons of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the lives of servicemen at the front – all this takes up 70% of the content of these channels. If other topics appear in the repertoire of Z-channel posts – the internal politics of Russia, the internal politics of Ukraine, international relations, then this is somehow connected with the influence of these events on the special operation. For example, in the case of international politics, the visit of the President of Ukraine to the NATO summit in order to obtain new weapons or negotiations between the Foreign Ministries of the Russian Federation and Turkey on a "grain deal" may be considered, domestic policy may be demonstrated in the context of the introduction of new laws in Russia or Ukraine, mobilization or statements by political or media figures about their Also, if the author or administrator of this channel decides to express his thoughts on the political structure of the country – its improvement or criticism, then the cornerstone is how much the current structure of the country (political, economic, cultural) helps or hinders the fulfillment of its goals. Sometimes criticism of the political structure of the country or the actions of the command can reach such proportions that it loses all constructiveness – for example, accusing the Foreign Ministry of betrayal because of the "grain deal" or searching for traitors among the military leadership because of the regrouping near Kharkov and Izium. State Duma deputy Matveichev called this way of thinking "turbopatriotism", which does not see events in a global perspective. ^[16] As already mentioned, the channels are moderated by the administrators themselves, which allows you to post content of various categories of frankness: open wounds, bodies of the dead, the consequences of shelling, etc. Such frankness can attract new users, as it plays on the "death craving" according to Freud – the Thanatos instinct. Both the wording and the language of the news can be frank – using a mat, the language of the news can create the illusion of proximity to the broad masses, creating the illusion of liberation from both the culture of speech imposed by television, and from "inconvenient truth" and "fakes". It is also important to mention that Telegram is an application that can be installed, including on a mobile phone, which allows you to access the content of Telegram channels from anywhere and in any situation. Many of the Z-channels have previously been devoted to the topic of the DPR and the LPR, as well as weapons, military equipment and conflicts around the world, but SVO has given an extremely powerful impetus to these channels. In addition, the administrators of some Z-channels themselves were participants in the formation of the LPR and DPR in 2014-2015, live on the territory of the republics, are military personnel of the armed forces of the LPR and DPR or the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation ^[17]. This fact gives the reader of these channels a certain sense of context, involvement in events and increases confidence in the "man from the front line". In some ways, Z-channels are a definite alternative for television – due to the above factors, they attract an audience that used to prefer television for the most part. These channels provide a sense of belonging and almost two-way communication, which television cannot provide. On Z-channels, criticism of individual decisions of the authorities is even allowed – excessively soft rhetoric towards the Ukrainian leadership, insufficiently fast pace of the offensive, corruption in the army, criticism of tactical decisions of the command. Performing a similar role with television in forming a positive attitude among viewers towards their own, Z-channels differ from TV channels in more direct rhetoric and the presence of criticism of government decisions, since Telegram channels are less dependent on budget funds. However, long before 2022, a definition of a person who covers military operations had already been developed – this is a military observer or a war correspondent, abbreviated as a military commander. It is precisely because of the similarity of the subject of the description that Z-channels are often described as military personnel. It is worth remembering the origin of this concept: a war correspondent is a journalist accredited and associated with a certain publication (newspaper, magazine, TV channel, news site), and who covers the fighting. Usually such a journalist has a journalistic education and acts within the framework of his client's assignment. The real military officers who have their own channels in Telegram include Sladkov ^[18], Steshin ^[19], etc. They are associated either with VGTRK or with Komsomolskaya Pravda. The canonical military commander, albeit of a new generation, is Semyon Pegov with his WarGonzo channel –^[20] in the past, he worked for VGTRK and covered the conflicts in Abkhazia, Egypt and the Donbas in 2014. The rest of the administrators of Z-channels, with all their thousands and sometimes millions of audiences, are difficult to attribute to traditional military officers – rather, they can be called military bloggers. Such bloggers are Yuri Podolyaka, the channel Turned on the Z war, Older than Edda, the Archangel of Special Forces Z ^[21], etc. These people work primarily for themselves, for their reputation, or combine their direct activities (the administrator of the channel Turned to Z war is a pilot of a combat helicopter) with the management of the channel in Telegram. There is also a lot of advertising in the posts of military bloggers.

Military bloggers or Z-channels, thanks to the above-described properties, were able to convert their influence in Telegram into fame on television and passes to the highest offices of government. So, Vladlen Tatarsky was a frequent guest on the SolovyovLive program^[22], and also became widely known for his presence by his presence at Putin's address on 30.09.2022 on the entry of new regions into Russia with his ironic phrase "We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone – everything will be as we love" ^[23]. Mikhail Zvinchuk, the author of the Rybar channel, also stands out among the military bloggers who have appeared on television. From 01/26/2023, Rybar received his own part of the broadcast on SolovyovLive called "The Analysis of the Fisherman" ^[24]. Rybar specializes in the strategic analysis of changes on the front line in the area of the SVO. However, military bloggers have attracted the attention of not only media figures, but also the Ministry of Defense. So, on October 14, 2022, an application was submitted to Roskomnadzor from the Ministry of Defense (it was signed by the chief of the General Staff) to check some military bloggers for discrediting the army. ^[25] The channels of these bloggers were Rybar, Igor Strelkov, WarGonzo (Semyon Pegov), Sergey Mardan, Igor Dimitriev, GreyZone. Perhaps the reason for the statement was the extremely harsh rhetoric of these channels criticizing the regrouping of troops from Izyum and Kharkov. Some channels, such as Rybar, Turned on the Z war (Older than Edda, Military Informant, Yaroslav's Letters) even wrote a collective post entitled "Yes they mock" ^[26], implying the army command. Perhaps the media influence allowed the authors of the Z-channels to come to an agreement with the Ministry of Defense, and come to a common language for discussing their own. The result of a compromise between military bloggers and the Ministry of Defense was a meeting on June 13 between war correspondents, with the participation of administrators of Z-channels, with the President of Russia. The meeting was attended by war correspondents from VGTRK, Channel One, Russia Today, Komsomolskaya Pravda, NTV, Izvestia, Zvezda, and some online publications Readovka, Wargonzo. There were also administrators of Telegram channels such as Katrusya (Ekaterina Agranovich) and Mir Segodnya with Yuri Podolyaka (Yuri Podolyaka). The meeting at such a high level demonstrates the high role of military commanders and Z-channels in shaping public opinion about their own. At least, in the presidential administration and the highest echelons of power, this is exactly the assessment of the role of military commanders and Telegram channels, otherwise they would not have been honored with such a high meeting. Despite the fact that there were only three representatives of Z-telegram – Katrusya, WarGonzo, Yuri Podolyaka, for the entire z-telegram layer this is a recognition of their merits and importance. WarGonzo and Yuri Podolyaka have earned their right to be present with war correspondents from the "old media" (television), since the designated Telegram channels have a very significant audience. The Mir Segodnya channel with Yuri Podolyaka at the time of the study had 2823792 subscribers, and WarGonzo has 1312805 subscribers. Another example of the influence of military commanders on the formation of public opinion about their military was Putin's use of the phrase "parquet generals", which is often used in Z-channels.^[27]

Thus, it can be concluded that Z-channels are two-way communication channels, involving users in the news stream through comments and reactions. Such channels are dedicated to the topic of a special military operation and are conducted either by people involved in hostilities (militias, Russian military armies, volunteers), or residents of the DPR and LPR. These channels covered military conflicts and the situation in Donbas before the start of the special operation, but the special operation gave them an impetus to development and popularity. Z-channels attract users with constant content, explicit content, and the absence of restrictions on the language of discussion. Due to the above factors, Z-channels in the field of their coverage can compete with television in the field of forming users' opinions about their own and the country's political system. Therefore, it is necessary to study the content of Z-channels, identify the image of government representatives, the command of the Russian armed forces, the image of a Russian soldier formed by them, and study the opinion of the authors of Z-channels about the problems in the country.

The results of the study

This section provides statistics of posts from the list of channels collected by the authors during the research of the topic.

Table 1

Here is a general list of topics according to which the posts of these channels were divided. As you can see, the situation on the front line and foreign policy events concerning Ukraine attract the most attention of authors and readers, and least of all the topic of humanitarian aid and Russian foreign policy. We can assume that the authors of the channels have a certain tendency to ignore the domestic Russian situation and actively monitor the global situation, of which front-line events are also a part.

Thus, it can be seen that, in general, Z-channels repeat a set of topics from television – mainly the concentration is on the external agenda: arms supplies to Ukraine, statements by European and American politicians about support for Ukraine with weapons and finances, as well as an analysis of statements by political figures in Ukraine. Perhaps, either the most odious statements are chosen to demonstrate the weakness and stupidity of Ukrainian politicians, or the most radical ones to strengthen the image of the enemy among the readers of the channel. Of course, the theme of the front line (attacks by the Russian/Ukrainian army, videos of battles, shelling) dominates the rest, since this is direct content from the combat zone, which allows the channel's reader to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of fighting for a while. In addition, Telegram's program code allows you to upload videos and photos directly from combat participants, which multiplies the amount of content and simplifies its uploading to groups, which cannot be said about television with its numerous filters and quality control. Given the increased attention to Ukraine's foreign policy and the political statements of Ukrainian figures, it can be assumed that these topics work to maintain interest in the topic of the front line. Posting and commenting on news about the supply of Western equipment to Ukraine, along with radical statements by Ukrainian politicians, allows, on the one hand, to create an image of a formidable enemy, an outpost of NATO forces near the borders of Russia, which the Russian army and the forces of the People's Militia of the LPR and DPR are fighting, which is reflected in the popularity of the front line theme. On the other hand, the demonstration of odious and absurd statements and actions of Ukrainian figures convinces readers that the enemy can be defeated, that Western weapons will not help the Armed Forces of Ukraine push through the Russian front if Ukraine is governed by such politicians.

The topics of the second echelon are usually present on specialized channels – the lives of soldiers on the front line and new weapons are covered on channels whose authors are directly present on the front line or participate in battles. These are channels Turned on War Z, Older than Edda, Wargonzo. The Rybar channel focuses on types of weapons as part of its news digests.

Russian politics remains in the third row of topics, as the statements of Russian politicians or Russian foreign policy are covered in more detail on a much larger number of conventional political channels on Telegram or on television. Russian foreign policy is covered mainly by channels Turned on War Z (due to the extreme number of posts on the channel), The World today with Yuri Podolyaka and WarGonzo. The Elder Edda, MARDAN and Vladislav Ugolny express their proposals to "tighten the screws", put the country on military rails and fight against "enemies of the people".

It is worth noting that it is on the topic of political proposals on the topic of special operations that the channels MARDAN and Vladislav Ugolny occupy the second place and the third in the ranking in terms of the number of posts. This is due to the fact that Sergei Mardan used to work for Komsomolskaya Pravda as a political journalist known for his radical political statements, which is why he continues to generate them on the topic of special operations. Vladislav Ugolny is a supporter of the National Bolshevik Party, and covers the special operation from these positions.

Table 2

The main criticism, as we can see, falls on the poor quality of military logistics (army support) and tactical decisions of the military leadership of the Russian Federation, most likely deviations characteristic of that period. This confirms that the main attention of the authors and the audience of Z-channels is focused on military topics, and not on political, economic or humanitarian ones. Obviously, Z-channels, while focusing on the front line and positioning themselves as military bloggers (or military commanders), will criticize the Ministry of Defense and faceless "parquet generals" for a weak move or lack of, in their opinion, military successes. It is logical that, for successful and lightning-fast combat operations, the army should be well equipped and prepared, and, consequently, the military bureaucracy, detached from the front, is also seriously criticized. The close relationship between the increased attention to changes in the lives of soldiers on the front line and criticism of tactical decisions of the command, along with poor supply of the army, is demonstrated by the channels Turned on the war Z, Older Edda and Rybar. These channels occupy leading positions in covering changes on the front line (Rotated at Z War 1937, Rybar 252, Older than Edda 145) and covering the lives of soldiers on the front line (Older than Edda 257, Rotated at Z War 162, Rybar 48). With more information about the course of the battles and better communication with the military, these channels express their dissatisfaction with the tactical decisions of the command (retreats, regrouping, insufficient bombing of the enemy, heavy losses) and insufficient technical equipment of the troops (lack of things, sights, drones, food, etc., possible corruption in the army, staff cover-up, nepotism). However, there is not always a positive correlation between the number of posts on the front line and the lives of soldiers on the front line, and criticism of tactical decisions and army supplies. So, the channels Mir today with Yuri Podolyaka and Wargonzo had more posts on the topic of the front line (Mir today with Yuri Podolyaka 425, WarGonzo 311) and the lives of soldiers on the front line (Wargonzo), the older Eddy and Rybar, but criticism of tactical decisions and army supplies on these channels did not exceed a dozen posts. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these channels are either not specialists in military affairs (Yuri Podolyaka), or they are too integrated into the official media space to allow themselves excessive criticism (Semyon Pegov worked with Wargonzo at Lifenews and was at a meeting with Putin on June 13).

However, tactical decisions are made by generals, and ensigns are usually responsible for supplying the army, so these areas of criticism are followed by criticism of personnel decisions (the general commands poorly, the wrong person was appointed to a position in a new region, military bureaucracy, difficulty in communication, isolation of generals from the situation at the front). In the vanguard of criticism are the war-turned Z and the Older Edda, but Vladislav Ugolny joins them. If these two channels understand their predisposition to criticism due to their proximity to the military sphere, then Vladislav Ugolny can use this criticism in terms of promoting his political ideas, since he sympathizes with the National Bolshevik Party. It is also worth noting that it is in this area that Sergei Mardan has received the most critical comments. Perhaps this can be explained by maintaining his image as a "truth-telling journalist", known for his radical statements, which is why he was forced to leave Komsomolskaya Pravda radio. The study of personnel criticism is of great importance for the content analysis of Z-channels, as it directly affects military and civilian management bodies. Despite the fact that specific names and personalities are usually not called, criticism of personnel appointments may reflect a cabinet struggle among interest groups in power, and readers of channels even without names will understand who the criticism is directed at.

The topics of criticism of representatives of the government and command as individuals (holidays abroad, "soft rhetoric", accusations of working for the West, defeatism) and criticism of diplomatic decisions (too peaceful negotiations, "agreements") of the authorities, despite the fact that they are very resonant in the media, do not use such a Z-channel the prevalence of both the topics outlined above. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these topics are far from military operations and go into politics, the discussion of which is typical for specialized political channels. Topics such as the "grain agreement" or the personal life of relatives of the Minister of Defense appear in separate posts where the authors of Z-channels casually express their opinions.

The personal life and non-professional life of deputies, military officials and generals are again discussed by the "foremost" critics: War-turned Z, Older Edda and Rybar. The first 2 channels, in the case of such criticism, create an emotional picture "while soldiers are dying on the fronts, generals and their entourage are burning their lives" due to the proximity of the authors of these channels to direct participants in hostilities. Rybar's criticism of this direction is characterized by the lack of a unified ideological coherence between the command and the authorities.

 As for the criticism of diplomatic decisions, the traditional judgment is expressed by channels Turned on war Z and Rybar. The first is due, in principle, to a greater number of sweats on all topics, and the second is in the context of a broad analysis of the course of the special operation. This topic is attractive for criticism of Mardan – being a former journalist, far from military affairs, he covers topics familiar to him.

Figure 1. Representation of Russian military and political figures in Z-channels

There is a certain paradox in this diagram: despite the fact that Prigozhin is a private person who does not have any military rank and direct command, in the subject of his military, primarily front-line, he has the greatest (after Putin) mention than all the military Ministries of Defense of the Russian Federation combined. Perhaps this is due to his personal information resources, which help him maintain his point of view in the information field.

Table 3.

Table 4

The above-mentioned paradox can be seen in these tables. A characteristic feature of the comparison between Shoigu and Prigozhin is that Shoigu does not have a single positive assessment, while Prigozhin does not have a single negative one. The head of the Russian Defense Ministry also loses significantly in terms of the number of general mentions (45 versus 177), which may bring him and his department significant reputational losses in the future.

Prigozhin's case deserves special mention. As previously described, Prigozhin's mentions tend to be on the positive side rather than on the neutral side, which cannot be said about Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The observation data on the posts of the winter of 20222-20323 demonstrate a vivid stage of the confrontation between Prigozhin and the Ministry of Defense. Z-channels clearly sympathized with Prigozhin and were on his side. However, if the head of the PMCs Wagner himself criticized the Minister of Defense directly in his later famous video about the demand for ammunition, then the administrators of the Z-channels of faceless "parquet generals" and staff bureaucrats. The connection between Prigozhin's positive image and criticism of official military structures is demonstrated by channels Turned on the Z-war and Older than Edda. In the criticism study section, you can see that these channels, in comparison with others, most consistently and actively criticized the tactical decisions of the Ministry of Defense and Army Supplies. It is also worth considering that these channels specialize in covering changes on the front line and the lives of soldiers on the front line, and also have closer contacts with military personnel than other channels. This information, in retrospect, can explain Prigozhin's actions on 23-24.06.2023: most likely, Prigozhin felt media support in telegram channels and took it for the support of the whole society, which gave him an incentive to commit his actions. It is also worth paying attention to the Rybar Channel, which has also been seen as a criticism of tactical maneuvers. When covering Prigozhin's actions on 06/24/2023 in his first post, he did not dare to call Prigozhin's actions a rebellion, and partly adopted his terminology about the "march of justice" ^[28].

Conclusions

Telegram's Z-channels focus on the topic of special operations and Ukrainian politics. This is evidenced by the most popular topics – changes on the front line, Ukraine's foreign policy and statements by Ukrainian politicians. These topics, with the exception of the front line, also appear on television, which indicates the possible competition of Z-channels in Telegram and TV channels for the share of the audience interested in the course of the special operation. Specific topics like the lives of soldiers on the front line or the coverage of new weapons in Russia and Ukraine are popular only on specialized channels that are either conducted by the military or the author himself often participates in hostilities. Russian domestic and foreign policy is clearly not a priority – users subscribe to these channels precisely to receive exclusive information about events most closely related to the special operation, whether it is changes on the front line, information about a rival in the form of the Ukrainian state or the means of realizing the goals of the special operation in the form of weapons. Channel administrators are aware of this, and do not pay attention to Russian politics.

Regarding the total number of posts, critical posts rarely exceed 10%, they are written most often in a streamlined and allegorical manner, but there are also harsh statements. Telegram, as a platform positioning itself as a place of free discussion, rarely restricts the statements of the authors of Z-channels, and it was important to find out how much the authors of these channels use the opportunity to express their critical opinion. The popularity of topics for criticism is determined by the topics covered in the Z-channels – since the most popular topic is the front line, criticism goes in directions that directly affect changes in the front line. Such areas are criticism of tactical decisions and criticism of army supplies. With a slight lag, they are followed by criticism of personnel decisions, because the authors of the channels may disagree with the appointments of generals and commanders. In their criticism, the authors of the channels expose corruption in the army, the isolation of the "parquet generals" from the situation at the front, outdated tactics of the Russian army, as well as military staff bureaucracy that hinders local initiative and the promotion of innovations. Such topics for criticism as criticism of diplomatic decisions such as the grain agreement or criticism of government officials or commanders as individuals for too "peaceful statements" or vacations abroad are significantly inferior in popularity.

The identity of the channel owner affects its content. Channels Turned on War Z and Older Edda are led by people taking part in combat operations – the first channel is led by a helicopter gunship pilot, and the author of the second channel is regularly present on the front line. As a result, the topics of the front line, the lives of soldiers on the front line, and new weapons are popular on these channels. It is also on these channels that the most criticism of tactical maneuvers and army supplies is made. MARDAN and Vladislav Ugolny channels are far from military affairs – they position themselves more as journalists or bloggers. Therefore, they cover Ukraine's foreign policy more, as well as Russia's domestic policy in the context of the fact that the political system needs to be changed towards centralization, since the current political system does not allow the goals of the special operation to be realized. Among the criticism of these channels is dominated by criticism of diplomatic decisions from the MARDAN channel, and criticism of the personnel policy of the Ministry of Defense from Vladislav Ugolny. A special case is represented by the channels Mir Segodnya with Yuri Podolyak and WarGonzo – if there are a large number of posts on the topic of the front line, these channels refrain from any criticism: there will not be more than 10 critical posts on these channels on each topic. This is due to the fact that these channels have already been integrated into the media – Yuri Podolyaka and Semyon Pegov (administrator of the WarGonzo channel) were at a meeting of military commanders with the president on June 13. In addition, Pegov used to work for LifeNews, which strengthens his ties with systemic journalism.

After studying the topics of Z-channels and their areas for criticism, one can imagine what kind of image of the course of the special operation is formed by readers of these channels: ordinary Russian soldiers fight bravely and with all their might, but the only thing that prevents them from winning is incompetent generals and corruption in the army.

The study of the relationship of Z-channels to the main figures of Russian politics and military command in the context of a special operation is no less important than the study of those channels. The study showed that Z-channels in Telegram have a large audience and influence, therefore, the frequency of mentions of a political personality and its image in these channels can have an impact on the popularity and image of a politician or military in real life. During the content analysis, it was revealed that the 4 most popular personalities in Z-channels are Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Denis Pushilin, Sergei Shoigu. It is important to note that the number of posts mentioning Putin and Prigozhin significantly exceeds the number of posts mentioning Pushilin and Shoigu by 7 and 4 times, respectively. If the popularity of Putin, Pushilin and Shoigu can be explained by their positions (Putin is the president of the Russian Federation and commander–in–chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Pushilin is the head of the DPR, Shoigu is the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation), then Prigozhin's case deserves special attention. Prigozhin, who holds no important position in either the political or military hierarchy, is the second most mentioned person of the special operation after Putin. In addition, in the ratio of posts with a neutral or positive attitude, Prigozhin has positive posts about himself on almost all channels (except Vladislav Ugolny), which only Putin can compare with. However, Putin is the president of Russia, his image has been built for decades through many sources, and Z-channels only follow the general trend. While Prigozhin has his own Patriot media holding (RIA FAN, etc.) ^[29], which can explain his popularity in Z-channels. In addition, against the background of disagreements between Prigozhin and the Ministry of Defense, the picture of Shoigu and Prigozhin's popularity is remarkable – Prigozhin is not only more popular than Shoigu, but also enjoys greater respect in Z channels than Shoigu. So, not a single negative post was found about Prigozhin, just like about Kadyrov. However, if in the case of the head of Chechnya this is an established image and tradition of covering his person in the media, then Prigozhin's is due to his rapidly increased popularity during the special operation. It is also necessary to note in this context the channels that created the most positive image for Prigozhin – these are the channels Turned on the Z war and Older than Edda. On these channels, the ratio of positive and neutral posts about Prigozhin was the most positive: 16 positive posts to 19 neutral posts on War-turned Z, and 5 to 5 on Older Edda, respectively. In some ways, these channels echoed Prigozhin's rhetoric about criticizing tactical decisions and criticizing corruption in the army – they had more posts on these topics than on other channels.

^[1] Recognized as a foreign agent