Victoria Bonya is a former model an TV star from Russia. She was on the Russian equivalent of Big Brother back in 2006 which is how she first became famous inside Russia. These days she apparently lives in Monaco and travels the globe as a kind of fitness and beauty influencer.
We might as well just get it out of the way. She is quite good looking.
Bonya has recently decided to speak up about some things that are bothering her at home in Russia and her comments have gone viral. She didn’t directly criticize Putin but accused those around him of not telling him the truth, which if I remember correctly is the sort of thing that Yevgeny Prigozhin said a few years ago and which resulted in his airplane falling out of the sky.
Regardless, I think the point is that things are bad enough that someone dared to say it.
The 18-minute Instagram critique was a surprise pivot for Victoria Bonya, a Monaco-based Russian influencer whose videos are better known for their lifestyle tips…
“There is a big, fat wall between you and us, the ordinary people,” Bonya, 46, said in a direct address to Putin earlier this week as she accused top officials of being too afraid to tell him the truth.
She rattled off to her 13 million followers a number of problems that she said were facing Russia — the major curtailing of digital freedoms, mass extermination of livestock in Siberia, deadly flooding in the southern Dagestan region and the oil slick drifting off Russia’s Black Sea coast.
“People will get tired of being afraid,” she said in the video, which has now been viewed more than 26 million times and liked by 1.4 million. “They’re being compressed like a spring, and one day, that spring will just snap.”
One topic Bonya did not mention at all was the war in Ukraine which has been going badly for Russia this year. Elon Musk cut off Russia’s Starlink access a couple months ago and since then their ability to fire missiles and guided drones at Ukraine has dropped off. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s drone production has been ramping up, leading to a lack of progress for Russia on the battlefield and to a major loss of life on a weekly basis.
Probably because things are not going well in the war, Russia has clamped down on social media and communication apps in the country, claiming it’s necessary for security.
Moscow is in the throes of a major mobile internet blackout as the Russian government tightens restrictions it has touted as necessary to ensure the “security” of its citizens.
The Russian capital has been more or less spared from a wave of systematic mobile internet outages that have hit the country since May, which authorities have said are necessary to counter the threat of Ukrainian drones.
But since the first week of March, Muscovites have also found themselves without connectivity on their phones. The restrictions have disrupted the daily lives of millions of residents and hit businesses that rely on mobile internet, leading Muscovites to revert to cash — and some are questioning whether their government is doing it deliberately.
“No one is happy about this. No one understands why it’s happening, or rather, everyone seems to understand why,” Lera, a Moscow resident who works in the arts industry, told NBC News in a text message Monday. “We feel powerless and unable to influence it. We expect a complete blackout within six months.”
The messaging app Telegram is also being shut down.
Millions in Russia use Telegram daily for private communication and crucial information.
Russian officials, Kremlin propagandists, war bloggers, businesses and celebrities are on the app. More than a messenger, it’s an ecosystem for everything from updates on incoming Ukrainian drones to general news and commentary…
The Kremlin says Telegram is not complying with Russian laws and not cooperating with authorities to stop serious crimes it says are being perpetrated on the app. It has confirmed to NBC News reports in two Russian newspapers that Pavel Durov, the Russian-born tech mogul who founded Telegram in 2013, is being investigated for “assisting terrorism activity.” No official charges have been filed.
Durov dismissed the case against him, calling it “a sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people” in a post on X last month.
“Russia is restricting access to Telegram to force its citizens onto a state-controlled app built for surveillance and political censorship,” Durov said.
I’m going to guess what happened behind the scenes here. Putin’s intelligence services contacted Pavel Durov and told him they wanted access to everything on Telegram so they could identify any troublemakers. Durov, who now lives in Dubai, said no. So Putin came up with an alternative. Just throttle access to Telegram and force everyone to move onto the government created replacement called MAX, which does the same thing as far as messaging goes but whch allows Russian intelligence to spy on everyone all the time. It would not surprise me at all if Putin got this idea from China, which doesn’t allow any foreign apps and has control over everything posted on the internet.
So that’s what Victoria Bonya is, in part, complaining about in this video which went viral. Here’s a sample.
Monaco-based Russian socialite and former Dom-2 star Viktoria Bonya has posted a video appeal to Putin, claiming she is speaking “on behalf of the people.”
She claims Putin is being given “unreliable information” and “doesn’t know everything [that’s going on in Russia],” while… pic.twitter.com/dlKOO8oNLm
— Brian McDonald (@BrianMcDonaldIE) April 14, 2026
Normally, this sort of thing would be ignored but in this case it went viral and was seen by millions of people so it wound up making its way back to the Kremlin’s spokesperson who denied that Putin didn’t know about all the bad things happening in Russia.
A Russian political analyst told NBC News that, whether she intended to or not, Bonya is effectively serving the Russian opposition.
Whether she realizes it or not, Bonya is strengthening opposition discourse, Russian political analyst and former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov told NBC News.
Some have accused Bonya of helping the Kremlin by employing the time-old narrative that deflects blame from the leader. But Gallyamov said she was part of what he called the gradual brewing of a prerevolutionary situation in Russia.
“I am not saying she is a revolutionary, that would be strange. But revolutions are not carried out by revolutionaries, that’s the paradox. Revolutions are made by the likes of Bonya,” he added.
Another sign that this made an impact is that Bonya was denounced by the Kremlin’s top propagandist on Russian TV. In this clip, Vladimir Solovyov attacks her looks, claims she was paid off to say what she said and says she’s a nobody who can’t read. His main point seems to be ‘How dare you question the dear leader!’
Bonya posted a follow-up video in which she seemed aware that she may have taken a big risk with her life here. She thanked the Kremlin for noticing her statement and denied that she was paid by anyone. But she’s crying as if she’s terrified, which she probably is.
«Я за то, чтобы мы нашей великой страной жили свою самую лучшую жизнь»: Виктория Боня поблагодарила Пескова за то, что Кремль увидел ее обращение
Она добавила, что посмотрела вчера «пару разборов» своего обращения на BBC и на Дожде и попросила «не приплетать ее туда»:
«Я не с… pic.twitter.com/EsiKZprhxb
— Дождь (@tvrain) April 16, 2026
Translated from Russian
«I am in favor of us, as a great nation, living our very best life»: Victoria Bonya thanked Peskov for the fact that the Kremlin noticed her appeal
She added that she watched yesterday «a couple of breakdowns» of her appeal on BBC and on Dozhd, and asked «not to drag her into that»:
«I’m not with you <...> I’m with the people, and I’m inside the people,— Bonya stated».
«It [the appeal] was worth it — I don’t know what will happen, what my fate will be, I don’t know. But in our time, I’m already kind of not surprised by anything. I would simply betray myself if I didn’t speak out, if I didn’t step forward. That would be a betrayal of my Russian spirit inside me».
Bonya also noted that «no one is paying her money» for the appeal.
She is right to think that she is no longer safe. Russian intelligence agents have a history of murdering Russian dissidents living in other countries. Putin is not a “good Tsar” getting bad information. He’s a ruthless monster who murders his opponents and dares anyone to complain. Those who do complain have a tendency to fall out of high windows.
If I were Victoria Bonya, I’d think about relocating to the U.S. and getting an apartment on the ground floor. What she said was true and brave but she clearly didn’t realize how brave it was when she said it. Now she needs to do what she can to avoid the consequences. Putin won’t be around forever, but for the moment he has a lot of power.
