Media
Thursday 25 October 2018
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“The Federal News Agency continues to publish materials about the incompetent behavior of foreign [intelligence] services. Journalists at FAN got through to one of the numbers from which it received SMS threats. From the other side the answer was in English.”
In a bid to counter U.S. efforts to stop Russians from interfering in the mid-term elections, Russia’s infamous troll farm has released yet another patently forged video that is comically bad in its execution. -
“It’s no secret to anyone, Western journalists write openly that Bellingcat is connected to special services, they leak information through it to have some effect on public opinion.”
Russian sources are promoting a narrative that the open source investigative reporting organization is connected to Western intelligence. Russia has not produced any evidence to connect Bellingcat to British or other intelligence agencies. -
“Sputnik has obtained amateur footage of the suspected movement of US military convoys along Czech and Slovak roads, with the quiet transfers receiving no coverage from local or foreign media.”
The Czech Republic and Slovakia are both NATO states. There is little reason to expect any coverage about the movement of a small military convoy through NATO member states, and driving in broad daylight dispels the idea that NATO was trying to hide something about this transfer. -
“People rallied, with bloodshot eyes, pronounced these words, looking me in the eye: ‘Death to the enemy, death to Russia, death to you’.”
The main response by members of the Ukrainian delegation was to sing the national anthem and say the Ukrainian national slogan. No one wished death to Russia or the reporter. -
“…the proportion of people who want friendship between Russia and Ukraine remained the same over the past 10 years. This is despite a campaign of anti-Russian propaganda in Ukraine and numerous infringements of Russian speakers’ rights which have been taking place since the 2014 replacement of the lawfully-elected Ukrainian government with a pro-Western regime in the course of violent protests known as ‘Maidan’.”
Attitudes: Russians actually hold a more negative view of Ukrainians than the reverse. Pollsters from both countries know why. The "negative tint of propaganda" directed at Ukraine, they say. -
“Latvia election result sparks EU crisis warning as pro-Russia party sweeps to success”
While it garnered the most votes, the Harmony party actually lost votes and one seat compared to past elections, and needs a coalition to rule. Also, the party has been rebranding by distancing itself from Russia prior to the election. -
“Stemming from the technical characteristics of the devices, the administration of which worked despite the [fact that] the convoy’s electronic jamming system was turned on, the conclusion can be made that the devices were transferred from foreign intelligence.”
Russian media reports alleging a Western hand in the assassination of Aleksandr Zakharchenko, former head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, fail to offer conclusive evidence. -
"All these cases have been branded ‘likes and reposts cases’ … We must draw the line here - we do have [criminal cases opened] for reposts, because reposts mean information is uploaded, but no criminal cases have been opened for ‘likes.’"
Normally, “liking” things on social media would not lead to a criminal case for extremism, but because of some social network’s settings, liking posts automatically led to them being displayed on one’s page. In at least one instance this led to a criminal charges for “extremism.” -
“The international company Ipsos is researching RT’s audience at our request. According to the company’s data, over the course of the last two years our audience has grown by one-third. 100 million people in 47 countries are now watching RT every week. RT’s Website in Arabic has beaten all other Arabic language channels, including the famous Al Jazeera and Al Arabyia, in terms of the number of visitors. Our Spanish Website is outpacing the BBC and CNN in Spanish.”
While RT in English is facing a credibility crisis, the Russian state media outlet’s audience in Arabic and Spanish languages is growing. However, Simonyan withheld information about multiple legal charges RT is facing internationally. -
"A new portion of fake news about Petrov and Boshirov was presented immediately after the speech of [UK Prime Minister] Theresa May in the UN Security Council focusing on weapons of mass destruction, during which she repeated accusations against Russia. There is no evidence, so they continue the information campaign, the main task of which is to divert attention from the main question: 'What happened in Salisbury?' The question is: when will there be any evidence of the involvement of anyone, as London tells us, of poisoning in Salisbury?"
Evidence strongly suggests that “Petrov” and “Boshirov” are Russian intelligence agents and involved in the Salisbury poisoning. -
“It [the 2008 Russian-Georgian War] was an operation for the enforcement of peace.”
International organizations and Russia recognized the conflict in Georgia in 2008 as a war. -
“All the time we are accustomed to believe that the international audience does not love us, that they particularly don’t love Putin and all of us who are close to him or live in his country. I’m always arguing with my acquaintances and friends …who love to repeat the phrase – ‘the whole world is against us’… I always want to point out to my friends: ‘And what, China isn’t the world, India isn’t the world, the Arab world, almost all of which is completely on our side -- well a significant part of it -- isn’t the world? Latin America isn’t the world? They don’t respect other nations, because for those people, the world is the Western world, and not just people from the so-called Western world, but the Western establishment…”
Despite the RT head’s claim that opposition to Russia and its leader is strictly the purview of Western powers-that-be, international polling shows that Putin is by no means supported by a global majority.