When the propaganda machine fails... About Simonyan, Keosayan and more

Russian propaganda machine clearly fails to cope with the task of covering the so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine in a strictly defined manner. All well-known informers, especially those on the most mass TV channels, and the main one, Konashenkov, from the Russian Defence Ministry (who incidentally resembles the famous Armenian mouthpiece Artsrun - author), have long-lost their audience. The viewers of special news bulletins and political shows in Russia no longer include the main part of society - the intelligentsia and well-known cultural figures. Today, the "rantings" on Russian TV channels have descended to the level of kitchen chatter.

They don't have Levitan now (the primary Soviet radio announcer during and after World War II) and no decent, truthful coverage. Moreover, with the rise of anti-war sentiments in Russian society, information warfare methods have begun to change. In order to achieve something, political strategists try to convince politicians to use various people, supposedly in the opposition. Losing out in brainwashing, while Dmitry Gordon in Ukraine is working very decently and promptly in the interests of his state and people, the Russian propaganda machine is looking for ways to get out of the propaganda crisis. And the country's political technologists have not come up with anything better or at least fresher, continuing again and again to smear their opponents. The subject of special attention was and still is, of course, the Ukrainian president. At first, for example, they launched a fake story that Zelenskyy had left Kyiv and was hiding out in Europe. It did not work, because the leaders of Western countries came to Kyiv one after another, and the head of state himself often spoke in the capital. Moreover, there were saboteurs neutralized in Kyiv, who were ordered to destroy the president of Ukraine, who obviously interfered with Russia's aims.

And then tales of Zelenskyy's countless riches - property in the Crimea and Moscow - were launched. At the same time, Russian political showmen call the president of Ukraine a "bloody clown," although who has blood on his hands is the Russian command, ordering the bombing of Ukrainian cities and civilians and sending his soldiers to their certain deaths.

After failing to hurt the Ukrainians and deceive the world community about the president "going abroad," the Russian media began to run fakes about his wife, who allegedly has British citizenship and has gone to her parents in Israel.

The editor-in-chief of Russia Today (now RT) Margarita Simonyan and her husband Tigran Keosyan were used as "big guns" to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine, always going out of their way to demonstrate their "Russian patriotism" and now, in connection with the Ukrainian events, to twist it as best they could. However, in 2005, at the initiative of the Kremlin, the Russian 24-hour English-language TV channel Russia Today was created in order to promote a positive image of Russia in the world.

However, Simonyan's activities resulted in Russia's state-run media being blocked in Europe. For example, in late December 2021, Margo tried to launch an online program in Germany without proper permission from the authorities of the European country. The German-language media regulator MABB took the RT DE channel off the air in Europe and launched an investigation into the RT network over suspected broadcasting violations in Germany. In September, YouTube in turn removed two of Russia Today's German channels without the possibility of reinstatement. Commenting on the removal of the channels, Google said that it did so because of content that violated COVID-19 rules. Further, the blocking of Russian channels in Europe became more and more frequent. Today, RT is blocked in almost the entire West. In fact, Russia was left without a tool to inform the world about its position on various important issues.

The Armenian Margo was born and educated in Russia, runs the Russian state media and calls herself a Russian patriot, yet she brazenly puts the Armenian lobby's agenda above the interests of the state. Meanwhile, Simonyan and Keosayan have repeatedly opposed Russian interests and Moscow's official position. One of the examples was Simonyan's delusional statement that Karabakh must be part of Russia. This provocation was aimed at driving a wedge into Russian-Azerbaijani relations.

Recently, during the turmoil in Kazakhstan, the Armenian diaspora in Russia represented by Baghdasarov, Simonyan and others tried to take advantage of the situation to torpedo Russia's relations with the biggest Turkic country which, like all Turkic countries, the Keosayan-Simonyan couple has hatred towards. In connection with the statements of Keosayan and his threats to repeat the Ukrainian variant of "special operation" for Kazakhstan, the chairman of the People's party of Kazakhstan Yermukhamed Yertysbayev made a statement. He noted that Keosayan cannot have his own opinion a priori; he only voiced the position of leaders of the Russian political elite.

Who is Tigran Keosayan? His father was filmmaker Edmond Keosayan, famous for his "Elusive Avengers" series of films, which featured not only a wide array of Armenian artists, but also the director's relatives. Tigran recently produced a film, The Crimean Bridge with the help of his wife Margo Simonyan (she is also the author of the script), with 154 million roubles ($2.5 million) from the budget. Only in 2022, Margo received 29 billion roubles ($476 million) from the state budget, and by 2024, it is planned to allocate her 89 billion roubles ($2.5 billion). This is despite the fact that year after year, RT, which Simonyan runs, is losing its audience abroad, and in many countries, RT is no longer broadcasting at all. According to information, in one year, this couple received 700 million roubles ($11.5 million) and began building a house in the prestigious district of Sochi.

However, Simonyan through RT and Keosayan through his broadcast on NTV escalate anti-Ukrainian and anti-Turkic hysteria. Lately, Simonyan and another popular TV anchor, Solovyov, have practically threatened nuclear war, and if Margarita threatens Ukraine, then Solovyov threatens Biden.

And most recently, Margo again became the heroine of a high-profile story by insulting Maxim Galkin - calling him a homosexual, explaining his marriage to Alla Pugacheva as a cover-up. Galkin's response to Simonyan's statement followed immediately. Many Russian folk artists, such as Laima Vaikule, Vladimir Vinokur, Philip Kirkorov and others publicly condemned Margo, saying that she would not get away with her prank on Galkin. Later, Simonyan began to speak out against her colleagues. Even Armenian columnist Artur Gasparyan said that Simonyan would have to answer for the insult.

REGNUM news agency is also at the forefront of falsifications of Armenian provocateurs in Russia. Moreover, Aslan Rubaev, is also involved in the work here (article "Provocateur Aslan Rubaev from the REGNUM news agency" 11.04.2022 – auth.). On May 26, 2022, in the article "Expert: sometimes it seems that Kazakhstan wipes its feet on Russia" Rubaev, fulfilling the order of the Armenian diaspora, which pays for his services, tried to drive a wedge into Russian-Kazakh relations.

This is how the Russian propaganda machine works...