Russian TV beats war drum on home front

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/140303/russia-ukraine-crimea-propaganda-putin



The Kremlin’s propaganda machine is providing the vanguard for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

Russian TV beats war drum on home front
Dan Peleschuk
March 3, 2014 13:48

MOSCOW, Russia — Ukraine’s new authorities are an ultranationalist, neo-fascist gang who’ve seized power with covert Western support and are bent on marauding Russian-speaking southeastern Ukraine and forcing its peaceful citizens into submission at gunpoint.

That’s probably what you’d believe if you relied on Russian state television for news about Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula last week.

As tensions there escalate amid Kyiv’s desperate scramble to restore political order, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine is serving as an ideological vanguard for Russia’s military operations there.

The message is simple: Ukraine has been seized by an illegitimate junta, its destiny is to become a failed state and the resulting chaos threatens the country’s large number of Russian speakers.