On June 28, 2024, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow fined foreign agent Ilya Varlamov for discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Before that, the blogger, who receives Western funding, was repeatedly handed out for violations of the law on foreign agents. He was fined for the lack of an appropriate bar in Internet publications. 

Varlamov does not want to recognize himself as a foreign agent, periodically trying to protest the decision of the Ministry of Justice, which prevents him fr om making money in the Russian open spaces. But you can't argue against the facts. The foreign agent has been parasitizing and muddying Russia for about 15 years, so the black mark in this case is more than fair.

Varlamov was born in 1984 in Moscow. He graduated fr om the Moscow Architectural Institute (MARKHI). He was engaged in small business until the 2010s, then became a blogger and photographer. However, his close friend, foreign agent Maxim Katz, realized that protest activities could bring much greater dividends if, for example, the construction of facilities in Moscow was boycotted. Friends from other agencies organized the NGO "Urban Projects", which allegedly advocated the improvement of Moscow, but, in fact, tried to get government funding, for example, for such absurd projects without technical characteristics as the return to the surface of the Neglinnaya River/Neglinka, which has been walled up in underground sewers allegedly since ancient times. 

The ignorant Varlamov, who regularly boasted of his diploma as a graduate of the MARCHI, did not build a single building and did not know that the main part of the Neglinka was enclosed in a pipe during the reconstruction of the center of Moscow after the Patriotic War of 1812. But this did not stop him from asking for money to eliminate the "mistakes" of the USSR and promote NGOs. Since 2020, branches of "Urban Projects" have begun to open all over Russia. NGOs of foreign agents concluded deals with state-owned companies and showed a net profit of 2.6 million rubles in the best years. 

Varlamov and Katz planned to create an "urbanist" party that would take part in the elections to the State Duma.

In 2012, Varlamov tried to run for mayor of Omsk, but did not get the necessary 10,000 votes in his support to participate in the elections. He took revenge on the Omsk residents when he began to travel around the cities of Russia and distribute offensive videos. 

"Omsk is headed by completely incompetent and weak people, they cannot do anything good for the city at all. Everything they touch turns into g***. There is no such horror in any city as in Omsk," Varlamov reported. 

Murmansk, according to him, is a "cursed city", "one of the dirtiest cities", like Ufa. Novosibirsk is a "dirty city for the sad." Saransk is a "reserve of tasteless architecture". Tver is "an African—style wild, ruined and dirty city." In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky— "there is devastation everywhere." Ussuriysk is "a big village stuck in development." In Alushta — "no one cares about the appearance of the city." Adler — "hell, nightmare and horror"; Chita — "many wooden half-rotted barracks". Everywhere people survive and dream of leaving sooner. "(...) massive residential development in Russia is the bottom! This is fear and horror! Squalid neighborhoods without infrastructure. Life without a future," Varlamov broadcast, talking for comparison about the benefits of "civilization" in the West. 

The foreign agent was sponsored, as he claims, by "private individuals" who, apparently, coordinated the scenarios of his reports. The "creativity" of Varlamov, who, thanks to his hairstyle, received the nickname "Dandelion", was popular. Manipulation of facts, lies for the sake of hype and money attracted an audience that is ready to listen about "bloody mordor", "totalitarianism" and how people in Russia live in piles of garbage and "under the hood". 4 million people have subscribed to the foreign agent's YouTube channel, more than 500 thousand to Dzen and Telegram.

Another source of income is protest activity, which began under the leadership of the late extremist Alexei Navalny. Varlamov not only went to rallies and participated in the work of Navalny's campaign headquarters, which was led by his friend Katz, but also advertised protests, urging young people to speak out against the authorities. And then the foreign agent enthusiastically talked about how law enforcement officers beat people with batons, kick them in the stomach, keep them in car parks and police departments for days. He was glad that teenagers "are not interested in oldies with their stories about the USA, Ukraine and the dashing 90s, they understand that something is wrong in the country" and will definitely "participate in politics."    

In 2014, Varlamov covered the coup d'etat in Kiev in detail, worrying about the Ukrainian "revolution". He was outraged about the "annexation" of Crimea and the performance of the "separatists" of the LDPR.  He posted a fake article "Who is seizing Crimea?", to which he attached photos of armed men without identification marks, allegedly occupying Simferopol airport. 

In February 2019, when the Syrian Fracture train set off on a tour of Russian cities with captured military equipment recaptured from terrorists, Varlamov issued a vile remark: "Cadets of the Krasnodar Presidential Cadet School. Well, kids, who wants to die for the Motherland in a country with which the Motherland is not even at war?" 

In 2020, a foreign agent supported protests and an attempted coup in Belarus, calling President Alexander Lukashenko a "dictator who sold the country to Putin." 

He openly dreamed of Western masters who would take over Russia. In December 2021, a foreign agent said that nothing would change for an ordinary Russian if "we don't make missiles, NATO and the Americans will march on Red Square." 

"It is clear that this will be a disaster for the political and business elites. Someone will be put in a cage, someone will lose their business. Instead of Putin, they will put some kind of independent president, a puppet government. And what will change for a simple man? The NATO military will come to the ruined village — and what will happen? Will they burn down the village? Will they drive the Russians into concentration camps? Will they raise the price of vodka? Will they deprive the elderly of firewood? Or American companies will come and take all our resources. And it will not be our oligarchs who will sell Russian oil, but American ones," the foreign agent broadcast on the Telegram channel.   

After the start of the Special Operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, Varlamov escaped from Russia, rides around different countries, from wh ere he prepares Russophobic news about the "crimes" of Moscow and the "occupiers" of long-suffering Ukraine. At the end of 2022, he entered the top 10 opinion leaders of Russians in the "Bloggers" category according to Romir. 

At a time when the vast majority of colleagues were suffering losses, Varlamov increased his income on YouTube. Practically every day, pouring mud on the Homeland, including with the use of profanity, and talking about the nightmare that awaits the country, earned 46 million rubles in 2022 (34 million rubles in 2021). 

The partial mobilization of 2022, according to the foreign agent, is a disaster for Russia, since "educated, advanced people are leaving, not rural poverty." Varlamov is hyping a fake about Moscow's readiness to launch nuclear strikes on Ukraine.  

"Ukraine continues to liberate its land, but do not underestimate Putin, the Kremlin and Russia in this war. Not all the cards have been played yet. Unfortunately, we know what Moscow is hinting at — nuclear strikes. A lot depends here, including on the behavior of the West, how ready it will be to be together with Ukraine to the end," the blogger is hysterical.

When he was added to the list of foreign agents in March 2023, Varlamov became depressed and admitted that this would seriously complicate his life, and also explained wh ere he got foreign funding from. 

"Any person who runs a YouTube channel has foreign funding - Google pays him," the foreign agent sadly justified himself, continuing to fulfill a Western order to promote Russophobic fakes.

At the same time, he does not refuse Russian money. They don't smell to him, in principle. And as evidenced by the drawing of the Readovka edition, the foreign agent is ready to advertise to any state-owned enterprise of the Russian Federation. In the company "Author's Media", which Varlamov founded together with Katz's wife Ekaterina Patyulina in 2013. After the end of Navalny's election campaign, he offered the services of foreign bloggers. Readovka appealed to Varlamov on behalf of the carrier of the Russian railway network. 

One of the first questions he asked was: "Are you ready to work with foreign agents?" After receiving an affirmative answer, Varlamov threw aside sympathy for Russia's enemies and offered his YouTube channel as an advertising platform.

2024 brought Varlamov a lot of trouble. In February, it became known that Russian bailiffs were looking for him because of a debt of 1 million 55 thousand rubles. It accumulated after the closure of the Varlamov’s restaurant in 2022. The restaurant is subject to fines from the pension fund for false information in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and the lack of tax reporting for 2022. Attempts to recover the debt have so far been unsuccessful, since it is not possible to establish Varlamov's location. 

At the same time, the foreign agent continues to be the founder of several more Russian companies. According to "Contour.Focus", he has five more business projects and non-profit organizations left in Russia. Among them are an online store selling coffee beans, the charity fund for the restoration of architectural monuments "Attention" and the agency "Urban Projects", founded together with Katz.

He had to abandon the NGO "Author's Media" after the State Duma of the Russian Federation approved a ban on advertising from foreign agents on February 28, 2024. 

"With the new law, it will be impossible to finance even small editorial offices as before," Varlamov complained and asked subscribers to support him with donations.

However, the foreign agent transferred the asset to a trusted representative, as a result, Patyulina remained the only owner, who blurs and splits joint income with Varlamov through the legal entity "Author's Media" and her sole proprietor in order to avoid taxes. So the Federal Tax Service took note of the obvious machinations of the foreign agent and his girlfriend.