Pro-Kremlin military blogger dies days after reporting massive Russian losses in Avdiivka

Mozorov was very supportive of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, having fought alongside Russian forces participating in the offensive in 2022.

Known as ‘Murz’ on Telegram, he was an ultra-nationalist commentator who made a number of trips to the frontline alongside Russian forces and reportedly had close ties to some of the units and their commanders operating in the East.

Several well informed pro-Russian military bloggers as well as Russian state news agencies and newspapers reported Morozov’s death on Wednesday, saying he had died by suicide. Lawyer and friend Maxim Pashkov confirmed his death and said he had spoken to Morozov the day before.

“We spoke with him at night, two or three hours before what happened. We agreed to write it off in the morning,” Pashkov wrote Wednesday on Telegram. “You were a true friend.”

Morozov wrote a series of posts on Wednesday morning, announcing his apparent intention to take his life, calling on his readers not to mourn him and asking that he be buried in the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) - the Russian name for the Ukrainian region of Luhansk, whose annexation by Moscow is considered illegal by most of the international community.

He also said that on Tuesday he had been forced to delete a post from his Telegram channel, without naming specifically who gave the order.

Morozov’s death comes after he reported that Russia was suffering massive losses during its assault of Avdiivka. He claimed Moscow had lost around 16,000 soldiers and 300 armoured vehicles since it started its assault on the town in October. That post drew severe criticism from several Russian propagandists and has since been deleted from his Telegram account.

CNN has seen evidence Russia suffered heavy casualties during the offensive on Avdiivka, but cannot verify the estimates published by Morozov. The Russian Ministry of Defense does not regularly disclose data on its losses in the war.

In his final messages, Morozov complained he was being bullied because of his report and said he was ordered to delete the post by someone he described as “Comrade Colonel.”

“Your command forced you to give this order, relying on good old army collective responsibility. If he doesn’t remove it, we won’t provide supplies,” Morozov wrote. In his last few posts, he also shared his will, and complained about shortage of weapons for Russian troops at the front.

Pro-Russian military bloggers have enjoyed some freedom to criticize the Russian military and the way the Ministry of Defense was prosecuting the war in Ukraine. After the failed uprising by former Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Moscow began to crack down dissent among ultra-nationalist writers, most notably arresting former soldier and also military blogger Igor Girkin.

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