By Andrew Osborn and Dmitry Antonov
MOSCOW, April 16 (Reuters) – The Kremlin took the unusual step of publicly acknowledging sharp criticism of the authorities from a celebrity blogger on Thursday, saying work was under way to address a slew of problems identified by social media influencer Viktoria Bonya.
Bonya, who is well known inside Russia for her appearances on reality TV shows and other programmes, has a huge social media following, and a video appeal she made to President Vladimir Putin this week was watched more than 20 million times and liked over 1 million times on Instagram.
In her video appeal, Bonya – who lives outside Russia – said she supported Putin, but said that officials were not telling him the truth about the country’s real problems, that the Russian people were suffering, and that they were being squeezed so hard by corrupt officials that they might one day erupt.
“You know what the risk is?” she said. “That people will stop being afraid and they’re being squeezed into a coiled spring and that one day that coiled spring will shoot out.”
KREMLIN SAYS WORK IS BEING DONE
Among other things, she spoke out against a sweeping crackdown on the internet, social media and messenger apps, accused the authorities of being too slow to respond to floods in Dagestan, and said they had mishandled the outbreak this year of a cattle disease in Siberia that led to an unpopular culling.
“The people are afraid of you,” she told Putin. “There is a big wall between the people and you,” she said, blaming regional governors, government officials and lawmakers for not telling Putin the truth about what was going on.
Instagram, like Facebook, is banned in Russia but Russians are able to watch it using virtual private networks.
When asked about Bonya’s public appeal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Of course, we’ve seen it. It’s quite popular.”
“It touches on many topics, on each of which, as you can see – as you have seen – work is actually being done,” he said.
“But, to be fair, a great deal of work is being done on them, a large number of people are involved, and none of this has been overlooked,” he added.
BLOGGER SAYS SHE IS ACTING FOR RUSSIANS
The idea of Putin as “a good Tsar” misinformed by nefarious officials is not a new one, and Kremlin critics suggested that Bonya’s appeal may have been coordinated with the authorities to let people feel that their problems are being aired and dealt with ahead of parliamentary elections later this year.
Her strongly worded outburst also came as some senior Kremlin officials and business-oriented former officials and bankers had, according to a source, lobbied Putin about their discontent over mobile internet shutdowns and a move to block the Telegram messaging platform.
Bonya said the initiative to publicly appeal to Putin was solely her own and that she was acting on behalf of the Russian people.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn and Dmitry Antonov; Editing by Alison Williams)
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