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October 12, 2026
Balkan Insight
By Samir Kajosevic
Key Takeaways:
Montenegrin police arrested Mikhail and Valeria Zvinchuk, co-founders of the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar, together with three associates, on charges of malicious political interference; the channel claims the group was filming the Cetinje Monastery with official permission and expects their release.
Rybar, which claims over 1.3 million followers, has been under EU sanctions since 2023 and British sanctions for disinformation; the U.S. State Department offered a $10 million reward in 2024 for information linking it to election interference and support for Russia’s war effort.
The arrests follow earlier contacts between Mikhail Zvinchuk and Bosnian Serb authorities in Republika Srpska, highlighting ongoing Western concern over Russian digital influence operations in the Balkans.
Montenegrin police on Friday arrested the two co-founders of the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar, Mikhail and Valeria Zvinchuk, along with three associates, accusing them of malicious political meddling in the Balkan state.
Founded in 2018, Rybar is a prominent Russian digital propaganda and geopolitical analysis network centred around a channel on Telegram, which is reported to have more than 1.3 million followers.
The Telegram channel administrators confirmed that the Zvinchuks had been detained along with other Russian citizens. They insisted that all of them were in Montenegro legally.
“Specifically, their plans included filming the Cetinje Monastery, for which a completely official request had previously been submitted. At present, the project team is in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, which is working to resolve the situation,” the channel administrators wrote on Telegram.
“Since there were no violations of local legislation, we are awaiting the release of all those detained,” they added.
Mikhail Zvinchuk is a prominent Russian military blogger who has been under EU sanctions since 2023 for allegedly spreading “disinformation and pro-Russian propaganda”.
He was a member of a working group set up by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2022 to coordinate Russia’s mobilisation efforts in support of the war in Ukraine.
Mikhail and Valeria Zvinchuk are officially designated on the British sanctions list.
In October 2024, the US State Department offered a $10-million reward for intelligence on Rybar over allegations that it was involved in interference in the American presidential elections intended to “sow discord, promote social division, stoke partisan and racial discord, and encourage hate and violence”.
The State Department accused Rybar of “bolstering Russia’s military capabilities and advancing pro-Russian and anti-Western narratives”. Zvinchuk was one of nine named people about whom the US was seeking information.
In June 2024, Bosnian Serb authorities announced a collaboration with Zvinchuk during his visit to Bosnia’s Serb-majority Republika Srpska entity, where he met Drazen Visnjic, director of the entity’s Agency for Information and Communication Technologies.
The Agency at the time said Zvinchuk and Visnjic had agreed to cooperate on establishing a media school, as well as other projects.
About Balkan Insight
The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.
View all posts by Balkan Insight →
Founded in 2018, Rybar is a prominent Russian digital propaganda and geopolitical analysis network centred around a channel on Telegram, which is reported to have more than 1.3 million followers.
The Telegram channel administrators confirmed that the Zvinchuks had been detained along with other Russian citizens. They insisted that all of them were in Montenegro legally.
“Specifically, their plans included filming the Cetinje Monastery, for which a completely official request had previously been submitted. At present, the project team is in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, which is working to resolve the situation,” the channel administrators wrote on Telegram.
“Since there were no violations of local legislation, we are awaiting the release of all those detained,” they added.
Mikhail Zvinchuk is a prominent Russian military blogger who has been under EU sanctions since 2023 for allegedly spreading “disinformation and pro-Russian propaganda”.
He was a member of a working group set up by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2022 to coordinate Russia’s mobilisation efforts in support of the war in Ukraine.
Mikhail and Valeria Zvinchuk are officially designated on the British sanctions list.
In October 2024, the US State Department offered a $10-million reward for intelligence on Rybar over allegations that it was involved in interference in the American presidential elections intended to “sow discord, promote social division, stoke partisan and racial discord, and encourage hate and violence”.
The State Department accused Rybar of “bolstering Russia’s military capabilities and advancing pro-Russian and anti-Western narratives”. Zvinchuk was one of nine named people about whom the US was seeking information.
In June 2024, Bosnian Serb authorities announced a collaboration with Zvinchuk during his visit to Bosnia’s Serb-majority Republika Srpska entity, where he met Drazen Visnjic, director of the entity’s Agency for Information and Communication Technologies.
The Agency at the time said Zvinchuk and Visnjic had agreed to cooperate on establishing a media school, as well as other projects.
About Balkan Insight
The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.
View all posts by Balkan Insight →
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