Since the beginning of the war, the authorities have drastically increased the salaries of propagandists working in the state media, with key employees receiving about a million rubles a month. This is reported by the "Project" in the published "Guide to Russian media in times of total censorship."
At the disposal of the publication were the payrolls of some state-owned media.
So, the war correspondent of the Russia-1 channel, Yevgeny Poddubny, earned 974 thousand rubles a month in the first half of this year, while in 2021 his salary was 782 thousand. After the capture of the Gostomel airport near Kyiv, he reported that this was “a new place of Russian military glory”, and Russian paratroopers were “on the near approaches” to Kyiv. However, a few days later, Russian servicemen handed over the Gostomel, which was not reported in the propaganda channels.
Another VGTRK war correspondent, Nikolai Dolgachev, began to receive 65% more since the beginning of the war: his salary increased from 418,000 to 688,000 rubles in the first half of the year alone.
Correspondent of Channel One Anton Vernitsky at the beginning of the year earned 402 thousand rubles a month, but in March the salary increased to 650 thousand rubles. The publication recalls that recently Vernitsky released a story that the "collective West" undermines its economy and "pumps Ukraine with weapons."
Russia Today employees also increased their income after the war. For example, the director of the Russian broadcasting service RT, Yevgeny Shipilov, earned a little less than a million in January – 950 thousand rubles a month. Since March, Shipilov has become a millionaire, now his salary is about 1.1 million rubles. In 2021, he received a third less.
In addition, after the war, TASS employees were also encouraged. Employees now receive bonuses for increased workload, former and current employees said. Payroll data confirms that bonuses to employees since the beginning of the war could be about 30% of the salary.
However, despite the increase in salaries, the war led to mass layoffs from the state media. About 20 employees quit RIA Novosti, several dozen people left the Russian edition of Russia Today. “When it all started, our editorial office said: drop all topics, we are completely switching to Ukraine,” said one of the RT employees. According to him, statements on social networks began to be closely followed, in the first days at least three employees were fired because of posts on the topic of the war.
Separately, in the Guide, journalists noted that blocking and repression had little effect on the audience of Russian independent media, including The Insider. Visits to opposition media sites dropped by 15%, but the number of subscribers to Telegram and YouTube channels increased sharply. Thus, The Insider channel increased by 109% (from 62.5 thousand subscribers in February to 131 thousand in June). Now the YouTube channel The Insider has 152,000 subscribers.
In June, Channel One employees working in the information department received a 20% salary increase . In this department, responsible for the production of daily newscasts and the Vremya program, Marina Ovsyannikova worked as an editor, who appeared live with an anti-war poster.
While the salaries of propagandists are being raised, real pensions and incomes of Russians are falling to a record low . This is evidenced by the survey "Social and economic situation in Russia" from Rosstat. According to the results of January-May 2022, the real salaries of Russians fell by 7.2%, which was a record for 7 years – the situation was worse only in 2015 after the annexation of Crimea and the sanctions that followed it. At the same time, nominal wages for the same period increased by 9.4%, which indicates a high level of inflation in the country. Pensions in annual terms collapsed immediately by 8.2%, while nominal pensions rose by 7.5%. The average size of state-appointed pensions amounted to 16,976 rubles.
