Montenegro Detains Co-Founders of Pro-Russian Telegram Channel

Mikhail Zvinchuk in Montenegro. Photo: Telegram/Rutube. Montenegrin police on Friday arrested the two co-founders of the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar, Mikhail and Valeria Zvinchuk, along with three associates, accusing them of malicious political meddling in the Balkan state. Founded in 2018, Rybar is a prominent Russian digital propaganda and geopolitical analysis network centred around a channel on Telegram, which is reported to have more than 1.3 million followers. The Telegram channel administrators confirmed that the Zvinchuks had been detained along with other Russian citizens. They insisted that all of them were in Montenegro legally. “Specifically, their plans included filming the Cetinje Monastery, for which a completely official request had previously been submitted. At present, the project team is in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, which is working to resolve the situation,” the channel administrators wrote on Telegram. “Since there were no violations of local legislation, we are awaiting the release of all those detained,” they added. Mikhail Zvinchuk is a prominent Russian military blogger who has been under EU sanctions since 2023 for allegedly spreading “disinformation and pro-Russian propaganda”. He was a member of a working group set up by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2022 to coordinate Russia’s mobilisation efforts in support of the war in Ukraine. Mikhail and Valeria Zvinchuk are officially designated on the British sanctions list. In October 2024, the US State Department offered a $10-million reward for intelligence on Rybar over allegations that it was involved in interference in the American presidential elections intended to “sow discord, promote social division, stoke partisan and racial discord, and encourage hate and violence”. The State Department accused Rybar of “bolstering Russia’s military capabilities and advancing pro-Russian and anti-Western narratives”. Zvinchuk was one of nine named people about whom the US was seeking information. In June 2024, Bosnian Serb authorities announced a collaboration with Zvinchuk during his visit to Bosnia’s Serb-majority Republika Srpska entity, where he met Drazen Visnjic, director of the entity’s Agency for Information and Communication Technologies. The Agency at the time said Zvinchuk and Visnjic had agreed to cooperate on establishing a media school, as well as other projects.