cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11115564

• Poland has its own version of the “Sasha Meets Russia” propaganda channel. It’s run by a former employee of the country’s diplomatic service
• That channel, “WMatrioszce” (“In the Matryoshka”), doesn’t mention the war, Russian politics and Putin, feeding viewers a reassuring dose of the everyday: Russia as a land of friendly people, an economic oasis, a place worth investing in
• With sanctions and ad suspension in place, a Westerner in Moscow has no realistic way to make a living from YouTube. So where is the money coming from? And how, exactly, is he making Putin’s regime more palatable for the Polish audience?

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The [propaganda] vlogger is Artur Siejka, a Polish citizen and sinologist by training and a long-serving former employee of Polish government agencies and institutions. In 2024, Siejka launched a set of social media channels under a single banner: “WMatrioszce” (meaning “in the matryoshka”). Across hundreds of posts, he shows his tens of thousands of followers a carefully curated Russia—or, more precisely, Moscow.

The formula is always cut from the same cloth: a dash of folksy simplicity, a sprinkle of luxury, friendly locals, easy chatter. Not a word about the war, sanctions or Putin. The moment a Russian interviewee strays onto dangerous ground — touching on subjects forbidden in Putin’s Russia — Siejka intervenes. His channels are openly pro-Russian, brimming with enthusiasm for the social and civilizational achievements of a country that routinely jails its critics.

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Politics? War? Don’t Ask

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The channel is built around lifestyle and travel formats: featuring daily life, people or local curiosities. On the one hand, @wmatrioszce serves up street interviews in which the smiling host chats with passers-by; on the other, candid kitchen-table conversations about identity with Moscow-based Poles who invite him and his camera into their flats. He glides nimbly between light subjects — from strolls through the monumental metro or visits to luxury boutiques and admiring glances at Socialist-Realist tower blocks, to painstaking price checks in neighbourhood discount and browsing job ads in local papers.

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There are things you won’t see in the matryoshka universe. Current affairs? Systematically sidestepped, just as promised. The war, Putin, sanctions, Ukraine? Likewise.

The unmoderated comments section, on the other hand, is pure politics. Posts parroting pro-Russian narratives are threaded through with voices backing Ukraine and rounding on the creator. The discussions play out in Polish or in Cyrillic. Because YouTube’s algorithms reward high volumes of interaction — whatever their content — the polarization actually helps build the channel’s reach and visibility.

Analyzing almost 60,000 comments beneath more than 500 “WMatrioszce” clips, we uncovered a cluster of 113 accounts that respond to the Russian material in a coordinated way. Nearly 250 profiles consistently drop their comments within one narrow 10-minute window.

In front of the camera, the YouTuber plays the affable boy-next-door. He never mentions how he made his way into Russia, what he lives on, what he did back in Poland, or how he spent his time before he started making pro-Russian content. He glosses over his professional past entirely, and mentions his family only in passing. In one of his early videos he explains: “In 2020 we returned to Moscow. That’s important in the context of current world events. It’s a backdrop I’d rather not delve into.”

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Google has suspended monetization for Russian publishers and banned content that “denies, minimises or trivialises well-documented violent events” — a category that includes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Pulling its services from Russia means creators there cannot earn from Google ads.

“Pure political propaganda skirting the edge of the law, unlabelled political ads, bot networks — these are being curbed ever more effectively by the digital platforms and by state action,” argues Jakub Szymik, founder of the CEE Digital Democracy Watch. “This explains the use of tools so soft and seemingly innocent that any backlash looks ridiculous.”

We asked Google whether the unmoderated publication of statements from people echoing the propaganda term “special military operation,” along with the circumvention of geoblocks from Moscow using a VPN and EU bank accounts, breached its YouTube Partner Programme (YPP) terms. The answer: neither the @wmatrioszce channel nor the slices of Russian public life it documents — including state festivals or the Rosatom icebreaker — violate the platform’s guidelines.

“Even though most of the content on accounts like @wmatrioszce masquerades as innocent travel blogging, the most popular posts point to fundamentally political matters: the shared origins of Poles and Russians, the supposed safety of Moscow’s streets, personal and political freedoms in the Russian Federation,” Szymik notes. “In the broader context, these narratives align perfectly with strategic goals — normalising Russia’s image among the Western public, laying the groundwork for anti-Polish and anti-Western sentiment, and eroding trust in the state.”

“WMatrioszce” may be registered in Poland, but in practice it operates in Russia. And Russian law imposes reporting obligations and financial restrictions on large creators — plus the threat of penalties for content deemed political, war-related, “extremist,” anti-war, LGBT, as well as content that touches upon sanctions, “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations.” Once a YouTube channel crosses the magic threshold of 10,000 followers, the rules require its owner to hand over identifying information to Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media and telecoms regulator. Artur Siejka does not tell us whether he is in contact with Roskomnadzor.

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The Moscow-Beijing Axis

Artur Siejka’s nonobvious career begins more than two decades ago … From what he leaves online himself, we know that in 2001 and 2002 he traveled to Moscow for summer language courses at the Pushkin Institute, one of the most prestigious centres for teaching Russian to foreigners. What he does between 2001 and 2004 is unknown. In 2004, he takes up Chinese studies at the University of Warsaw. He spends the 2007/08 academic year in Beijing at Capital Normal University, a public institution co-funded by the city authorities and China’s Ministry of Education. There he meets his future wife, the Russian Anna Chelnokova — a sinologist, like him.

After finishing his master’s in 2010 he moves to Moscow (because of his wife, as he himself admits). Anna Chelnokova-Siejka graduates that same year with a degree in cultural studies from Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU).

For the next four years Artur Siejka works as a translator and business consultant for companies navigating the Russian and Chinese markets. From 2010 on his name pops up in mentions of a Polish firm, EastLink Consulting. In a 2012 article on the business outlet Bankier.pl about the expansion of Polish companies, he is introduced as “a China-market analyst from EastLink Consulting.” We checked: no company by that name was ever registered in Poland, nor was it listed as a sole proprietorship. Most likely, EastLink Consulting was an informal expert brand— a moniker for providing commentary on the Chinese market, covering topics like livestock and poultry prices. The web domain expires in 2019, and today, the project leaves no digital trace.

Around the same time, Siejka takes up work with Sotres, a Polish consultancy, while still operating independently. He runs promotional campaigns for LOT Polish Airlines, the Polish Tourism Organization and the Polish Investment and Trade Agency. He brokers commercial contacts for clients in Russia, Poland and India, among others. People from his professional circle at the time remember him as a shrewd dealmaker. “He travelled a lot, he had connections,” they recall.

Between 2013 and 2018, Siejka’s wife holds a “New Sinologist” scholarship funded by the Confucius Institute. This state-run institution is widely regarded as a pillar of Chinese soft power – for years, Western intelligence agencies have treated it as part of the PRC’s economic intelligence apparatus.

In 2014, the future vlogger lands a post at the Polish embassy Trade and Investment Promotion Section in Beijing, and the entire family relocates to China. The outpost serves under the Ministry of Economy, independently of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. As head of the section, Siejka holds a diplomatic passport and, with the rank of Second Secretary, formally represents Polish interests in China.

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