Television pundits called traitors after criticising war
RUSSIANS have rounded on two television pundits who criticised Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, calling them “traitors” and accusing them of spreading “fear and delirium”.
Filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov and academic Semyon Bagdasarov, unlikely rebels who had near-impeccable prokremlin credentials, were keeping a low profile in Moscow yesterday after they spoke out against the war on a prime-time state television talk show.
On the programme An Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, hosted by one of the Kremlin’s most reliable propagandists, Mr Shakhnazarov said Ukraine risked becoming an “absolute humanitarian disaster”, while Mr Bagdasarov compared the war with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which ended in humiliating defeat for Moscow.
Mr Putin has banned criticism of the war but instead of being hailed as brave free thinkers prepared to speak the truth to power, Mr Shakhnazarov and Mr Bagdasarov were denounced as “disgusting” by Russians.
“He thinks himself to be a man of the people,” one social media user wrote of Mr Shakhnazarov. “But he is a traitor!”
“I’m angry! During war, such speeches are a betrayal!” another user wrote, appearing to forget that talk of war is banned in Russia and has been replaced, officially, by the euphemistic “special operation”.
State television is a key propaganda weapon for Mr Putin in his battle to win the information war over his invasion of Ukraine. He has appeared keen to keep the realities of the war from the Russian public, which generally has strong business, friendship and family ties with Ukraine.
News of military setbacks and of conscripts dying reaching ordinary Russians is a nightmare scenario for Mr Putin and he relies on propagandists such as Solovyov to reinforce the message that this is a “special military operation” to “denazify” Ukraine.
Amid a wider move to restrict access to information about the war, including closing independent media outlets, Moscow yesterday opened a criminal case against Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms.
The social network had changed its hate speech rules to allow users to call for “death to the Russian invaders” in the context of the war with Ukraine. Russian prosecutors asked a court to designate the American tech giant as an “extremist organisation”, and the communications regulator said it was restricting access to Meta’s Instagram. Facebook was blocked in Russia last week.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which launched the inquiry, reports directly to Mr Putin. It was not immediately clear what the consequences of the criminal case might be.