How One Popular Russian Designer Turned Into A Messenger for Russia’s War

"My opinion has never changed; I have always been against any wars, violence, aggression,” a man tells his YouTube audience in Russian. But then his speech takes a turn, “Russian troops are conquering Russian territories that have always been Russian. They were mistakenly given to Ukraine, and Ukraine decided that now Russians can’t go there. Of course, I support Russian troops taking Odesa, removing Zelensky from power, opening borders, and canceling visas." 

This is one of many statements made by Artemy Lebedev, a prominent member of Russia's creative class, justifying the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Lebedev is a well-known Russian designer, traveler, and blogger who has long positioned himself as apolitical and has gained a large following. However, he has recently taken on another critical role—as one of Russia’s leading propagandists.

While most other influential propagandists have been sanctioned by the West, Lebedev has managed to avoid that fate. In 2023, he even traveled to Switzerland to attend a watch exhibition and then complained to his online audience about how expensive the country was. 

Not only does Lebedev publically support the war and the shelling of peaceful Ukrainian cities, but he also continues to receive money from Russian budgetary structures or those associated with them. Behavior like his in Russia is generously rewarded with positions and state contracts worth millions of dollars. 

Coming from an intellectual family of philologists and writers, he was one of the pioneer designers on the Russian internet. In 1995, Artemy Lebedev opened his first internet design studio, which three years later was named "Artemy Lebedev Studio." Since then, his company has created logos for many Russian clients, including Gazprom, Beeline, Russian Railways, Alfa-Bank, Yandex, and more. The studio developed logos for Russian cities, metro navigation, and more.

In Russia, he became known not so much for his design work but for his active blogging since the early 2000s. From the beginning, he was provocative, often using obscene language and easily insulting others. On the Russian internet, Lebedev positioned himself as an "apolitical" professional who watched politics with some curiosity, although he insisted it was not crucial to him.

"We don't work with priests, politicians, and assholes," Lebedev would assert, while each year increasing the number of government contracts in his portfolio. The millions of dollars from state contracts were accompanied by rhetoric like "corruption is not the main problem," "kickbacks are good," and so on.

The apolitical Lebedev started discussing politics more often in the early 2010s when the few Russian political opposition groups began facing increased repression. He called Russian liberals "infantile slackers who came to ruin his creative motives."

Lebedev finally decided to abandon his apolitical stance in 2020 when he appeared in a promotional video supporting amendments to the Russian Constitution, the main goal of which was to formalize Vladimir Putin's participation in the next presidential elections.

After that, Putin awarded Lebedev with an Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" in the II degree. He was given this medal "For services in the establishment and development of the Russian segment of the information and telecommunications network Internet."

In 2021, the designer turned into an investigator and published a post on his Telegram channel about Yulia Navalnaya, in which he claimed, based on a fake document, that she was a German citizen.

Since then, the "apolitical Lebedev" began criticizing Alexei Navalny and his organization FBK almost every week, commenting on his poisoning and making predictions that ultimately did not come true.

"In prison, as we know, no one dies. He'll sit, sew mittens, and then come out just in time for the next presidential term, becoming popular. This is not Nelson Mandela, who sat in prison for 30 years; three years is very compact and good," he said about Navalny, a few years before Navalny's suspicious death in a colony.

On the eve of the full-scale invasion, Lebedev became more interested in geopolitics. "All week long, they just f***ed up, with every iron broadcasting that Americans were warning that Russia was going to invade Ukraine... but no one needs Ukraine with its clownish government," Lebedev predicted.

Ultimately, after the start of the full-scale invasion, the once apolitical designer firmly established himself among Russia's top propagandists. On his Instagram, he posted photos from a trip to Donbas and the territory of the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, occupied by Russian troops.

Judging by the photos, Lebedev visited Donetsk, Mariupol, where he stood near the destroyed drama theater and the Azovstal plant, as well as the city of Enerhodar and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Visiting the captured territories of Ukraine, where thousands of civilians died, brought him much satisfaction. "I love traveling and visiting rare and interesting places. I also have another weakness—I love to disrespect authority. Here’s a super combo—to get to a nuclear power plant (which is always not easy) on the territory of Ukraine, where Zelensky's personal decree has banned me from entering since January this year for another five years! A full life should consist of such small joys," said Lebedev.

Artemy also spoke approvingly of the shelling of Ukrainian cities. "In Odesa, there was a hotel for many years that no one needed, built in the late 90s, a monument to late Soviet idiocy, a shitty building, it looked terrible, in general, we can thank the Russian army for saving Odesa from this madness," he commented on the destruction of the hotel in the city center.

This designer's behavior continued to pay dividends. In addition to government orders worth millions of dollars, in October 2023, he was appointed design director of Vkontakte, Russia's "Facebook analog." This social network actually came under state control ten years ago. 

Its former owner, Pavel Durov, had to sell the social network and leave Russia because of a conflict with the FSB. Lebedev seems to have a much warmer relationship with the latter.