In the photos and videos of Semfira Suleymanova that can be found on the Internet, a cheerful young woman with dark hair smiles cheekily at the camera.

Just like many other young women do on social media.

Except that Suleymanova doesn't just want to please and entertain, but does political advertising.

Advertisement for the national-Bolshevik party “Other Russia” (Drugaya Rossiya), which was founded by the Russian writer and political partisan Eduard Limonov, who died in 2020.

Suleimanova also promotes the Russian war in Ukraine, which the party has supported since the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbass in 2014.

In this month, the 25-year-old Suleimanova herself left for the Donbass,

to report from there as a partisan war reporter.

Now she was apparently killed when the vehicle she was in was blown up by an anti-tank mine.

Anna Vollmer

Editor in the “Germany and the World” department.

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It is not entirely clear who Suleymanova wanted to work for.

After a message first circulated that the young woman was a reporter for the news channel Russia Today, this was immediately denied by the channel itself.

In a selfie that can now be found in various articles about Sulejmanova's death, she wears a black square on her chest that reads "WarGonzo".

"WarGonzo" is the project of the Russian journalist Semjon Pegow, who conducts war propaganda and spreads fake news on various channels.

According to a ZDF report, Pegow was already on the road as a pro-Russian reporter during the annexation of Crimea and in Syria, at that time still for the online medium "life.ru", which was close to Putin.

WarGonzo has one million subscribers

The Ukraine war seems to have benefited the 36-year-old man.

The number of subscribers to the “WarGonzo” Telegram channel, which according to ZDF was still around 180,000 in January, has now risen to over a million.

In its channel description, WarGonzo promises a "subjective look at war and weapons."

Possibly Semfira Sulejmanowa should also contribute and prepare her contemporaries for the war with humorous videos.

In an obituary for the young woman, which was shared on “WarGonzo” and apparently written by her party “Other Russia”, one can also read: “One would think that these short videos on Tiktok are an inappropriate format for the National Bolsheviks , but the young, beautiful girl made them so funny and attractive that they got quite a lot of looks."

One such video begins with Sulejmanova smiling for the camera in a white dress with cat ears on her head.

Then comes the Tiktok-typical cut, Sulejmanova is now dressed in black with a cap, biker and a wide T-shirt.

In her hand she holds a sticker from her party that reads "against the police state".

She sticks them to house walls, doors, lampposts.

What comes across as cool and harmless, accompanied by hip-hop, is exactly the opposite.

Because in view of the fact that opponents of the war in Russia are beaten up by the police and put in prison, this call by a pro-war woman is grotesque and cynical.

As is the obituary with which her party commemorates Sulejmanova.

You want to lure young people, but you accept that they die.