Egor Prosvirnin

Egor Aleksandrovich Prosvirnin (Егор Александрович Просвирнин; 1986–2021) was a Russian publicist and social and political activist, the permanent editor-in-chief of the online publication Sputnik and Pogrom, published from 2012 to 2018. He began his career as a publicist in magazines about computer games and LiveJournal, and in 2012 he founded Sputnik and Pogrom, which published articles on the topics of history, politics and culture. Due to his publications especially in 2010s, Prosvirnin became a prominent figure in the Russian nationalism and national-democratic movements. However, he later became an adherent of monarchist views.

Being committed to nationalist beliefs and critical of many state initiatives, since 2014 Prosvirnin became one of the most ardent supporters of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and Russia's full support for the separatist Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. However, in 2015, a criminal case was opened in connection with a number of statements of extremist nature published on the Sputnik and Pogrom website, in which Prosvirnin was held as a witness; in 2017, the publication's website was blocked in Russia, and in 2018 the publication was finally closed. After the closure of Sputnik and Pogrom, Prosvirnin continued his career as a blogger and publicist, hosting streams on his own YouTube channel Czar on significant socio-political topics. On December 27, 2021, Prosvirnin died as a result of a fall from the balcony of a house in Moscow.

Contemporaries consider Prosvirnin to be one of the most talented publicists of Russia in the 2010s, praising the artistic and stylistic component of his texts, but there are polar opinions about the ideological component of his publications.