Prigozhin turned out to be the owner of the YaRus social network

The owner of Wagner PMC Evgeny Prigozhin turned out to be the owner of the national social network YaRus. ABOUTdonates money to create the platform since 2019, writes the Dossier project, which examined the disclosed documents of the entrepreneur’s structures.

YaRus is positioned as the “patriotic equivalent” of Zen, Instagram and TikTok. It was founded by Nizhny Novgorod entrepreneur Dmitry Ilyukhin, Fontanka wrote. During the 2020 crisis, the company moved to St. Petersburg, where it fell under the wing of Prigozhin.

The first version of the application (the social network does not have a web version) was created in 2021. Ilyukhin told Fontanka that more than 500,000 users installed it in March. people, and the monthly increase amounted to approx. 170 thousand. installation.

However, Dossier writes that there are almost no “live” users in the social network. The content in it is either copied from other social networks or created by Prigozhin’s “troll factory”. In other words, most of the published material is prepared by Prigozhin employees.

“Bloggers” from the Prigozhin social network even rented three apartments in St. Petersburg, Dossier claims. They are located at Bogatyrsky Prospect, 37; st. Aviakonstruktorov, 36 years old and Primorsky prospect, 22 years old.

Copying materials from other platforms is done by 10 people from the state. There’s even a separate “Content duplication” item in the marketing budget, the Dossier notes.

Employees of the social network generate likes and comments under publications themselves. They work in two shifts: 14 people in the morning and 17 people in the evening. Each employee keeps eight separate accounts. In addition, YaRus developers planned to order a “manual event filling” service from the Daynet agency.

In total, 63 people work in Yarus, on whose salaries Prigozhin spends 10 million rubles a month. In total, PMC founder Wagner’s spending on YaRus in 2021 amounted to about 30-40 million rubles a month, depending on advertising costs, according to the Dossier.

Prigozhin previously called YaRus one of the possible replacements for Western social networks shut down in Russia. “In Russia, there are many video hosting sites that work very effectively today, but they are underestimated precisely because they are being replaced by such malicious resources as YouTube. The names of these hosting services are RuTube, VKontakte, Yarus…” his comment was published by the Concord press service.

Earlier, Prigozhin called for YouTube to be blocked in Russia and submitted such a request to the Prosecutor General’s Office. He accused the platform of spreading fakes, calling for the overthrow of the government, publishing “Russophobic” and destructive content.

The premiere of Prigozhin’s film about the Wagnerian PMC The Best in Hell was also held on the YARUS platform, which was announced by the head of the social network Ivan Dobrovolsky. “The YARUS social network is interested in a variety of content for its users and actively supports the new Russian cinema,” he said.