Russian military blogger who decried army losses dies

He claimed country lost 16,000 men and 300 armored vehicles in taking Avdiivka

A pro-war Russian military blogger died Wednesday, his lawyer said, after the blogger wrote the country's military pressured him to remove a post exposing the scale of its losses in a recent battle in Ukraine.

The blogger, Andrei Morozov, claimed in his post that Russia had lost 16,000 men and 300 armored vehicles in its assault on the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, which the Russians captured last week. He deleted the post Tuesday after what he said was a campaign of intimidation against him.

The following morning, Morozov published a series of posts on Telegram outlining the complaints he had received from Russian military command and Kremlin propagandists about his exposé. In the posts, he threatened to end his life.

His lawyer, Maksim Pashkov, confirmed the death in a written response to questions. He did not specify a cause.

Morozov's death was reported earlier Wednesday by Russian state media, a pro-Russian official in occupied Ukraine, and various prominent Russian military bloggers.

Such ultranationalist bloggers initially were tolerated in the war: They supported the Russian military and raised attention to problems for its troops. But they have been suppressed after the mutiny last year of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who built the paramilitary force known as Wagner and championed similar views.

Prigozhin died in August in a plane crash that Western officials have blamed on the Kremlin. Another prominent ultranationalist blogger, Igor Girkin, was jailed on charges of extremism.

The intimidation described by Morozov, 44, also comes as the Russian government is attempting to stamp out remaining expressions of dissent after the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The government has detained hundreds of people for trying to lay flowers at impromptu memorials or expressing public tribute.