Moves to join alliance spun as US plot on Russian TV

IT WAS a historic week for Europe, with Finland and Sweden both making the decision to seek to join Nato. But in Russia state television was quick to condemn the news, working hard to spin it into a US plot to expand its dominance into the Arctic Circle.

On Thursday morning 60 Minutes, a political talk show on the country’s most popular channel, Rossiya 1, presenter Olga Skabeyeva railed: “What will the Finns and Swedes gain from this decision?

“That’s probably a rhetorical question because the main beneficiary here is America and Biden and the main objective is a new iron curtain from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea.”

Ms Skabeyeva is one of several Russian TV personalities now on the EU sanctions list for undermining the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine.

Her remarks set the tone for the day’s coverage across the hours of political panel shows that now dominate TV schedules. Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, almost all entertainment programmes have been dropped.

TV remains the primary source of information for most Russians and it is tightly controlled by the Kremlin. The focus of what Russia calls its “special military operation” was initially on the “demilitarisation” and “denazification” of Ukraine. But the longer it drags on, the more TV is framing it as a front in a defensive battle being waged by Russia against aggression from the West, and Washington in particular.

It is in those terms that Finland’s and Sweden’s plans have been presented to Russians.

Rustem Klupov, a retired military intelligence agent appearing on Ms Skabeyeva’s show, branded the moves an “escalation of the conflict” between Russia and the West.