Ilya Varlamov on the war

In 2016, the blogger was entered into the database of the "Myrotvorets" website for illegally visiting territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia — the Crimean peninsula and certain areas of Donetsk Oblast (ORDLO) in circumvention of Ukrainian law (note: Varlamov maintains that he did not visit the territories of the LPR and DPR terrorist groups and that the four reports published on his blog from there were not made by him).

In 2017, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) decided to ban Varlamov from entering Ukraine for 5 years. In November 2021, the sanction expired.

Despite the SBU ban, in October 2017 Varlamov visited Odesa. In connection with this, the Myrotvorets website published information claiming that for the opportunity to enter Odesa, Ilya Varlamov agreed to cooperate with the SBU. The blogger reacted harshly to this report on his Twitter:

Criticism from Ukraine

On November 2, 2021, Ilya Varlamov released a propaganda film titled "Ukraine: Kuchma's Cunning, Poroshenko's Corruption, Zelenskyy's Reforms" (reupload) as part of the "30 Years Without the USSR" series in the style of Russian propaganda, which caused outrage among Ukrainians.

The video was dedicated to the contemporary history of Ukraine over the past 30 years, but with distorted and frequently omitted facts. In addition, Varlamov omitted the fact of Russia's war against Ukraine, without explaining the true reason for the ruined relations between the countries and the citizens of both nations. Varlamov also published a map of Ukraine without Crimea, calling Russia's occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula its "accession".

The video voiced a host of Kremlin narratives: regarding the "artificiality" of Ukrainian borders, Ukraine as a "failed state", "external governance" and the 2014 "coup d'état", the "Civil War" in Donbas, the "bloodless return" of Crimea, and the "suppression of the Russian language" in Ukraine.

Later, the blogger deleted this video, acknowledging it as unsuccessful and containing inaccurate assessments of the situation:

I worked on the film about Ukraine remotely; unfortunately, the result was a substandard product with a number of not entirely accurate assessments. I failed to convey my thoughts and ideas in a remote format. We decided to remake it; Maxim Katz went there and filmed everything on site, as probably should have been done initially.»

Varlamov's position after 2022

After February 24, 2022, the blogger's civic stance became uncompromising and consistently anti-war. Ilya Varlamov openly condemned the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and left Russia.

On his YouTube channel, Varlamov began regularly releasing news and analytical videos in which he spoke in detail about the destruction of Ukrainian cities, the Russian army's war crimes (including the events in Bucha and Mariupol), and the humanitarian catastrophe. The blogger harshly criticizes the so-called "SMO", Putin's decisions, and total propaganda inside Russia.

Varlamov's statements about the war

There is not a single real reason for starting hostilities. There was no genocide, no Bandera junta, and nothing else of what propagandists talk about on television, persuading people that war is necessary and right.

Today it is already clear that no one gained anything from this war. Tens of thousands have died, hundreds of thousands were left disabled. A separate word must be said about the tragedy of Ukrainians. Russia claimed that it went to protect Ukraine under the slogans «where have you been for 8 years while Donbas was shelled». But how many residents died in Mariupol? And most importantly — for what? From whom were they liberated?

... before February 24, it seemed to me that it was impossible to convince people that there could be a war against Ukrainians. Today, using the phrase «brotherly people» is strange and inappropriate, but before February 24, I thought that the majority of Russians considered Ukrainians a brotherly people

Persecution in Russia

For his anti-war activities, the journalist faced persecution in Russia:

• On March 23, 2023, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation included him on the list of foreign agents for discrediting the army and disseminating inaccurate information about decisions of government bodies

• In August 2025, Moscow's Meshchansky Court sentenced Varlamov in absentia under articles on "fakes" about the Russian army motivated by hatred and evading the duties of a "foreign agent". The case against Varlamov was opened over a video posted on November 23, 2023, on YouTube, in which he reported on the shelling of residential buildings and civilian casualties in Kryvyi Rih and Odesa. At the request of the Russian prosecutor's office, the court handed down a sentence of 8 years in prison and a fine of 99 million rubles.

• In October 2025, Rosfinmonitoring added Varlamov to the register of terrorists and extremists.