Ukraine war: Putin influencers profiting from war propaganda

Russia's pro-war influencers are generating big advertising revenues from their social media coverage of the conflict, the BBC has found.

Alongside a daily ration of gruesome videos of drone strikes and false claims about Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, they share ads for anything from cryptocurrency to fashion.

Known in Russia as "Z-Bloggers" because of their support for a war often symbolised by the letter Z, they are often embedded with the Russian army and post footage from the front line where they call on young Russians to enlist.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, pro-war influencers have gained millions of followers on Telegram, the social media platform many Russians turned to after President Vladimir Putin banned Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

That explosion in users has led to a surge in Telegram's advertising market.

War influencers have taken advantage of this. They sell ad spaces for companies looking to reach their young audiences.

To find out how much they charge, members of the BBC's Global Disinformation Team posed as hotel owners interested in posting ads on their channels.

We reached out to some of the most prominent players.

One of them was Alexander Kots, a veteran correspondent for a pro-government newspaper who became a war influencer, with more than 600,000 followers on his personal Telegram channel.

Semyon Pegov, known as WarGonzo, was another. Perhaps the most well-known Z blogger, he has more than 1.3 million followers.