According to a report from the Daily Beast's Russian media analyst, one would never know that Vladimir Putin has placed tanks and troops on the Russia/Ukraine border poised for an invasion if you've been watching Russian state TV.
As Julia Davis wrote, surveying the Russian media landscape as war looms is an exercise in watching hosts of the shows turn "white into black, and black into white."
"On Kremlin-funded networks, the vision of events is presented not only upside down, but backwards. Panicked pundits blame the United States and Ukraine for the escalation, claim that Russia doesn’t want the war and theatrically ponder: 'Why won’t somebody stop Biden?'" she wrote before adding, "In a bizarro world of Russia’s state media, America—which has been painstakingly attempting to prevent an escalation—is the true aggressor."
Case in point, she notes, was Russian lawmaker Oleg Morozov taking to the airwaves to warn that it is western leaders who are banging the drum for war.
“I’m hoping there are people next to Biden, next to Scholz, next to the British PM, who will look at the scenarios and say, ‘If the big war with Russia’s participation were to start, it will cost Europe dearly. Think about that!’ That is my last hope, that the fear of this unpredictable situation will stop these hotheads." he lamented.
Similarly, Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, proclaimed, "The United States want this war. Their main goal is to take over Europe’s energy market. Biden could care less about the victims and their suffering, about Europe’s losses. He is realizing the plans of the American establishment," before exclaiming, "Stop Zelensky! Stop Biden!”
Writing, "If there were not so many lives hanging in the balance, you would describe current Russian state TV as a darkly comic farce," Davis added. Writing, "just as the U.S. administration had warned, Russian authorities now appear to be readying themselves for the re-invasion of Ukraine under false pretexts. One of the main pretexts aggressively promoted by the Kremlin and Russia’s state media is the unfounded allegation of “genocide” of Russian speakers by the Ukrainian military."
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