“The West has unleashed a war in Ukraine”: a day of Putin’s TV propaganda The clock is ticking: the dispute over the US debt ceiling comes to a head

At nine in the morning, the world is… full of bullets. A smooth-bore cannon juts out of view on the right, mounds of earth flying into the air in the center of the screen. A tank struggles through the woods, more bullets come from the left, men in camo throw themselves to the ground, trees fall. Another tank, another roar, more explosions.

“Our landing troops are driving the enemy to flight. They literally burn their positions.” The moderator sounds triumphant. “Ukrainian nationalists are firing with renewed vigor. These radicals strike with NATO caliber. Our guys are against.”

It’s Friday morning news on Channel One, the oldest and most popular state channel on Russian television. Moderator Aliona Lapschina had barely mentioned “our boys” when she switched to the correspondent at the front, who reported how “bravely” these “boys” drove the “enemies” to flight at Svatowe (Svatowo in Russian).

He films a drone, has to flee. “I didn’t manage to record an interview with the commander, we have to get out of here,” he says as he drops into the military vehicle. “As long as the opponent is not defeated, this will continue,” he shouts into the microphone. Shaky photos show a devastated forest.

Nine out of ten Russians get their information from television

Television is the number one source of information in Russia. The independent Moscow opinion research center Levada has calculated that about 90 percent of the population is mainly informed about it. In many households, the television is on non-stop, sometimes in the kitchen, living room and bedroom at the same time. “Zombiebox”, critics call him. Television has long been a tool of manipulation in Putin’s system.

Each format follows the official government line. The news continues from the fights in live format to the “International Justice Forum” in Saint Petersburg. Guests from Iran, Egypt, India should be used for internationality. “Some countries think they are better. That is why they are taking sanctions against Russia,” whispers the rapporteur, looking around the forum.

Their interlocutors: Maria Lwowa-Belowa, the Russian child rights officer wanted by an arrest warrant from The Hague, speaks again, with an icon in the background, about the “alleged deportation of children from Ukraine”. Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Russian Commission of Inquiry, rants about the “genocide of the Ukrainian fascists”.

Russian human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova railed against the “sanctionary aggression of the West”, which “the world has never seen before”. “The West is destroying human rights,” she says in front of millions of households. message ready. The following shows migrants “storming the border with America and posing a threat to Biden.” Advertisement. To breathe.

“Guys in the front, thanks!” Says the moderator

After yogurt, coffee and banking advice, it’s on to bullets, “our boys”, the “bloodthirsty Ukrainians”. For half an hour, the moderator of the program “Anti-Fake” wants to “expose the lies of the West.” He has invited three guests who have little to say other than how the West has been trying to “destroy” Russia for “300 years”. Now about Ukraine. “The task of the Ukrainian Nazis is to kill people with weapons from France,” someone says.

The other complains that the British are now supplying Storm Shadow missiles. “Our military special operation has been created to finally restore order in Ukraine. But the West went further: it unleashed a real war for which it had been preparing for decades.” No one disagrees. At the end of the show, the moderator says: “Guys at the front, thank you very much. Thank you! “

«Beauty replaces the brain»

Meanwhile, Rossiya 1, the country’s second largest broadcaster, is showing “exclusive footage” of the shelling near Donetsk on its screen. Dan “Dr. Alexander Myasnikov» about the plan. A cardiologist who knows how to tell in his eponymous program “About the most important thing” – health. He talks about skincare and says things like “beauty replaces the brain” or “I understand everything about women”. Dr. Myasnikov stops in front of a woman in his studio and says, “Your eyes, oh, you have such beautiful eyes. Women’s eyes are the best.” Sexist? The audience claps.

Then the war returns to the living room. In the first channel, on Rossiya 1, on NTW, right through the state broadcasters, other broadcasters have long ceased to be on the cable network, independent media in Russia are blocked on the Internet. “Exclusive shots” of the front are shown, sentences are said like “We are brutally fought against by strangers.”

“Zelensky is a toxic gambler, a loser who has to keep telling the West that the Russian army is the strongest in the world. He keeps disappointing the West and would rather appear in the Eurovision Song Contest, this show full of European freaks,” says a scientist in the infotainment program “Time will tell” on Channel One.

In the program “Treffort” on the NTW, the guests rant about the “idiot Americans” who “only have two coils in their brains” and “the Russians have been dehumanizing for decades”. NTW once offered malicious satire and criticism of the government. It was the first station to be broken up when Vladimir Putin took office in March 2000.

Now the daily processing of the Americans is on the agenda. The moderator of “Treffort” almost whines, “Why don’t they like us?” and asks the question, “How can we influence the minds of Westerners?” One of his guests: “Only with force. Then they respect us.”

Roaring, “Victory” and World War II

In the afternoon, almost all stations are about ‘human relations’. The programs just have different names. In the first channel, for example in “Male/Female”, a teenage daughter wants to have her mother’s authority revoked, who apparently can’t get rid of her alcohol addiction.

Everyone yells at each other, there are tears and insults, the moderators are very sympathetic – until there is more news, more infotainment programs, more war violence full of hatred against the West.

Entertainment programs such as “Wheel of Fortune” or “The Voice” follow later in the evening. But even among all the folk songs, including traditional dresses, at the “Wheel of Fortune”, between nursery rhymes about “Dear Mama” and jams “like grandmas”, there are sayings like “We have the winning gene” or “As long as we all standing together, we cannot be defeated”.

Leonid Yakubovich, who has been managing the “Wheel of Fortune” since 1991, often invites guests from the “new territories”, as the Russians officially call the territories annexed by them in eastern and southern Ukraine. He showers them with prizes from the ruling United Russia party, of which he has been a member since the 2000s, and is visibly pleased that they are now “finally home”. Then he spins the wheel and guesses letters.

And again there is news, again «our intrepid boys» against the «Kiev bandits from the West armed to the teeth». War roars and flickers, whether morning, noon, evening or night. It thumps and thumps and rattles. Also in the daily series.

Before bedtime, there is the war thriller “Katyusha” on Channel One. Set in 1944, a wounded scout is found and appointed commander of a dog squad. Katja – affectionately called Katjuscha -, the leader of the girl train, doesn’t like it. “Come on, you can go back into battle,” the doctor says to an injured person. He jumps up, grabs his rifle and happily leaps into the fog of a forest. The war as triumph, as pure entertainment. hour after hour. For over a year. (aargauerzeitung.ch)