Fisherman

2024

The US State Department announced a reward of $10 million for information that allows you to establish the location of persons associated with the Rybar project

In October 2024, the US State Department under the Rewards for Justice program announced a reward of up to $10 million for information that allows you to identify or establish the location of persons who, according to the department, are associated with the Rybar project. This was reported on the program website.

The department said that Rybar, "a Russian media organization previously funded by the late Russian tycoon Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin,<...> is participating in interference in the US elections."

"Rybar" operates propaganda channels on social networks# HOLDTHELINE and# STANDWTHTEXAS to promote the political interests of the Russian government in the United States. In addition, on the eve of the presidential elections in the United States in 2024, Rybar created the TEXASvsUSA channel in X (formerly Twitter) to exploit the problem of illegal immigrants crossing the Texas border, "the State Department said in a statement.

Rybar's media school opened in the Balkans

The Rybar team spent a week in April 2024 in Serbia and the Republika Srpska.

Here is how the goals and results of the trip participants themselves were described:

"We educated, we talked, we explained how to create and maintain Telegram channels, form grids from them, distribute the right content and fight disinformation (especially in the context of promoting the cult of Srebrenica).

We met with different people: students, journalists, politicians and researchers.

Our goal is to show that you can do Twitter without/X, Facebook and. Instagram That experience Russia in information struggle can and should be taken into account. That Telegram is the platform that allows you to do this.

Here are some statistics:

• closed lectures by Mikhail Zvinchuk were attended by over 500 people;
• under personal support, Rybar's team took over 10 bright and promising projects;
• agreements were reached on holding regular face-to-face master classes with the involvement of authors of Russian Telegram channels.

For a long time we studied the approaches of the West in waging an information war against us. The moment has come to apply our knowledge and train our associates in the right approaches and attract them to Telegram.

The Balkans are just the beginning. "

In addition to explaining why Telegram journalists need, Mikhail Zvinchuk @ rybar explained the intricacies of information warfare and gave interviews.

More than 50 people participate in the development of the channel

As of February 2024, more than 50 people are working on the development of the Rybar channel.

2023: Creation of Rybar LLC, revenue 18.7 million rubles

In March 2023, Rybar LLC was established. Its CEO and co-founder is Mikhail Zvinchuk and Valeria Zvinchuk is the second of three co-founders. The main activity of the company is "the activities of advertising agencies," also among them are declared "printing newspapers" and "other types of printing activities."

According to the RBC-Company service, in 2023 the revenue of Rybar LLC amounted to 18.7 million rubles, and net profit - 874 thousand rubles.

2018: Mikhail Zvinchuk and Denis Shchukin create a channel about the wars in Syria and Iraq

On February 10, 2018, an information resource was created about the wars in Syria and Iraq. Mikhail Zvinchuk and Denis Shchukin started this project together.