Prominent Russian lifestyle blogger, Viktorija Bonja, has drawn wide attention with a video criticising President Vladimir Putin, with the clip attracting millions of views and more than 800,000 likes on Instagram.
“Vladimir Vladimirovich, people are afraid of you,” Bonja, who lives outside Russia, told Putin in rare criticism.
“The people are afraid of you, bloggers are afraid of you, artists are afraid of you, governors are afraid of you. And you are the president of our country.
“It seems to me that we should not be afraid,” she said.
Bonja said she personally was not afraid of the Kremlin leader, supported him and considered him a strong politician who was badly informed.
In the 18-minute video, she listed problems that she said were not being properly reported to Putin by regional officials.
Among the issues she mentioned were aid for victims of flooding in the Russian republic of Dagestan, the oil spill near Anapa on Russia’s Black Sea coast after two tankers crashed there in December 2024, and recent internet shutdowns.
Bonja rose to fame through a Russian reality television show and has nearly 13 million followers on Instagram.
