The Americans Are Hacking the Election! ...No Joke, Doing Their Best to Interfere Through the Media
Anyway, Moscow isn't going to give anybody away or be accountable to Washington. It'd be nice if Washington itself had some accountability, or at least answered a few uncomfortable questions about its interference in the upcoming Russian election. Today, the Federation Council presented new details about how they’re trying to interfere with Russia's sovereignty.
One of the main tools is, of course, the media affiliated with the State Department. We can make a top ten list of articles and headlines. For example, Radio Freedom's website. "Why Russia became a mafia state." Notice that it's not a question but a statement. Or, "Fringe Debates," in the present tense. It's just a couple examples out of dozens.
How much do overseas governments spend on this? We'll learn this from Anton Podkovenko.
- Hello, Anton.
- Hello.
- It must be a lot.
- Of course, billions of dollars. That's how much the US spends on interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, including Russia. These figures were presented by one of our senators, Andrei Klimov, and, of course, the infowar isn't the last item on this list.
It even sounds banal. When the US needs to defame Russia, the KGB is the first thing that comes to their mind. Like a composite image of the Russian threat. Who else if not Radio Freedom, which is financed by the US Congress, knows better who rules our country.
Irina Gekht, Russian Federation Council: "Non-governmental organizations and the US media are trying to create false things that are not legit. Today, in our country, the election process is unprecedentedly transparent and legit. It's also competitive, that is, there are many candidates".
For some foreign media agencies and NGOs, the upcoming election is an occasion not only for criticizing but for making strange and questionable rhetoric. Here are just a few of their scary stories.
Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch CEO: "Some people say, 'It's just a farce. Why even pretend that it's an election? Let's just call it a show.' People get thrown in jail for things like this".
At the same time, there's no real proof. But the US media are going on and on about the Russian mafia just to paint a picture of the country's supposed decay. Just one more cliché—the KGB.
Mikhail Anichkin, Russian Public Chamber member: "We should say the same: the White House, the CIA, the Italian mafia. It looks like they're describing the mechanisms that exist in their own country. There's a saying that goes 'a guilty conscience gives itself away'".
The Voice of America radio station, which is headquartered in Washington, chose another way to influence the audience. It doesn't say a word about the Russian election, it's basically a media boycott of one of the world's most important upcoming events.
But Current Time isn't silent. It's a joint project of Radio Freedom and Voice of America. It's full of irony—they say the election is a formality, and there's no need to vote.
Thom Brooks, Durham University professor: "In this case, the US shows its double standards. On the one hand, it gets offended when someone allegedly interferes with its election. On the other hand, it sees nothing bad about influencing elections in other countries".
The story is the same with Deutsche Welle. They say that the pre-election unrest isn't real, the work with the electorate is too easy to see. But when in Europe, in Germany itself, they try to stimulate the electorate, the media take an active part, and it's fine.
Mikhail Anichkin: "It's a threat. It's a threat to our information space, to our society, as they're trying to affect and discredit it. We'll fight this fiercely."
Looking at the hysteria of the Western media saying that the Russian election is a fiction, I can only ask one question: Why organize the media attacks and spend billions then? It proves the opposite — there's a choice. Or what would the State Department be fighting?
- Anton Podkovenko told us about the State Department's puppets.