Russian TV video: Dmitry Kiselyov is the Kremlin’s nuclear naysayer, with lies designed to intimidate a local audience
VLADIMIR Putin propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov sunbathes in Dubai a day after the warning Russia could turn the British Isles into a “radioactive desert”.
As a sign that Kiselyov isn’t too excited about nuclear Armageddon, there have been reports and photos from the channel, which hit back just a day after its apocalyptic warning in the Emirates.
A Telegram channel, which published photos of Kiselyov arriving at a five-star hotel in Dubai with a female companion, hinted that the TV presenter will see Judgment Day dining on Michelin-star restaurants and visiting Western boutiques would – indulgences now denied to all Back home since Western sanctions crippled Russia’s economy.
Kiselyov’s chilling report showed that an underwater missile was launched just off the coast of Donegal before a tsunami swept across the country and neighboring Britain.
The host then claims that the resulting “extreme doses of radiation” will turn everything into “a radioactive desert.”
As a television personality, Kiselyov is both a journalist and a ringmaster and Putin propagandist. It takes the form of the Kremlin-based low-cost tenant Nostradamus.
In 2014, he described Russia as the only country capable of turning the US into “radioactive ash” in a inflammatory comment at the height of tensions over the Crimean referendum.
Kiselyov stood in his studio in front of a gigantic picture of a mushroom cloud created after a nuclear attack with the inscription “into radioactive ash”.
When Russia was preparing for an invasion Ukraine In late February this year, Kiselyov told viewers across Russia’s 11 time zones that the West could be blown up with “more than 500 nuclear warheads” if it continued to threaten Moscow.
Russian state television claimed an underwater nuclear drone could completely destroy the British Isles.
Nostradamus, the 16th-century French astrologer, had some success in predicting the Great Fire of London and the French Revolution. However, Kiselyov’s clairvoyance is much more about conjuring up doomsday scenarios to intimidate a home audience into believing that they need a strong leader to protect them from domestic and foreign enemies.
The aim of many of his publications and those of other notorious broadcasters such as Vladimir Solovyov, Olga Skabeeva and Margarita Simonyan is not to inform audiences.
By distorting the information space with erroneous reports, contradicting information and outright lies, Kiselyov and his ilk seek to blur the lines between reality and fiction.
As moderator of the weekly Sunday show from Vesti Nedeli (news of the week) and deputy head of Russian state television VGTRK, Kiselyov is one of the most powerful figures in the Russian media spreading Putin’s ideologies.
Kiselyov himself was the subject of a travel ban and asset freeze by the EU following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Russia wiped out what remained of the independent media after invading Ukraine, allowing state television and the pro-Kremlin press to dominate a narrative of a special operation to denazify Ukraine.
Even in the restrictive climate under President Wladimir PutinBefore the invasion, Russia still had some independent voices on TV, in newspapers and on the Internet.
Regressive new rules ordered after the operation began — which have made it illegal to call the military action an “invasion” or spread “fake” news about it — changed the landscape and led to the closure of TV Rain, Radio Echo of Moscow and a number of opposition news sites.
The majority of independent journalists working for these media fled the country, fearing they could be jailed for 15 years for violating the new laws.
In addition to his psychic abilities, Kiselyov has a penchant for extravagant tirades that demonize the West, stigmatize homosexuals and portray Ukraine as a country overrun by violent fascists.
One of his most infamous outbursts came on a Rossiya 1 talk show in 2012, when he said that gay people should be banned from donating blood and sperm and that if they were killed in a car accident, “their hearts should be buried in the grind or.” burned as unfit to prolong human life”.
Viewers are variedly shocked, confused, and amused by Kiselyov’s almost effervescent performances. Some swallow it like Fox News infotainment, but those in more remote parts of Russia see it as part of Russia’s real confrontation with the rapidly encroaching West.
The bourgeois intelligentsia in urban western Russia and the younger generation have long since switched off while their parents leave it on in the kitchen in the background.
The older generation may say they don’t believe what they hear from Kiselyov and Co., but the wall-to-wall propaganda trickles into their subconscious through constant osmosis.
Just three weeks ago in Moscow, my mother-in-law asked us on Facetime if it was true that Poland was about to invade Russia. She had heard something from state-controlled news, but couldn’t remember the source.
My wife and I assured her that would not happen. Her husband overheard the conversation and threatened to throw the portable TV out the window of their 18-story apartment.
https://www.independent.ie/news/russian-tv-video-dmitry-kiselyov-is-the-kremlins-nuclear-doomsayer-with-lies-designed-to-cow-a-domestic-audience-41608116.html Russian TV video: Dmitry Kiselyov is the Kremlin’s nuclear naysayer, with lies designed to intimidate a local audience
