Pro-War Russian Blogger Goes Silent After Post on Oleshky Evacuation
Russian pro-war military blogger Vladimir Romanov has stopped posting on Telegram after suggesting that the recent ceasefire in Oleshky was unfavorable for Russia. His whereabouts are unknown.
Vladimir Romanov, a popular Russian pro-war military blogger, has not posted online since Saturday, Oct. 31. He runs the Telegram channel "Romanov Lite," which has more than 150,000 subscribers. The silence followed a message in which he suggested that last month's ceasefire and humanitarian mission in the occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky worked against Russia's interests.
The deleted post
Last Friday, Romanov published a message on his channel and later removed it. It said that only four buses carrying Oleshky residents left for Russia during the ceasefire, compared with 17 buses that took evacuees into Ukrainian-held territory. The post also predicted that television would probably show more "our" buses, but with the windows fully curtained.
His figures roughly match reporting by Alex Salvi, a journalist for the U.S. outlet Newsmax, who also said just four buses with Oleshky residents went to Russia. That suggests few people in the war-damaged town sympathize with Moscow. Romanov is normally based in Sevastopol, in annexed Crimea, and his whereabouts remained unknown as of Thursday evening.
Ceasefire and evacuation
The ceasefire in and around Oleshky ran from Oct. 27 to Nov. 1 and was credited to U.S. first lady Melania Trump. It allowed emergency aid to reach the town and made civilian evacuations possible.
Russia's Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova acknowledged earlier this week that Russian authorities had prepared enough buses to evacuate up to 750 civilians, but many returned largely empty. Her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets, said Russia and Ukraine had agreed not to disclose how many Oleshky residents used the ceasefire to leave.
