Dmitry Kiselyov's reports are never designed to inform
Russian State TV claimed an underwater nuclear drone could completely destroy the British Isles.
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Dmitry Kiselyov's reports are never designed to inform
Jason Corcoran
VLADIMIR Putin propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov is sunning himself in Dubai a day after warning Russia may turn the British Isles into “a radioactive desert”.
In a sign that Kiselyov may not be overly agitated about nuclear Armageddon, there were reports and photographs of the broadcaster kicking back in the Emirates just a day after his apocalyptic warning.
A Telegram channel, which ran photographs of Kiselyov arriving at a five-star hotel with a female companion in Dubai, suggested that the TV host was going to see out judgment day enjoying Michelin star restaurants and visiting western boutiques – indulgences now denied to everyone back home since western sanctions crippled Russia’s economy.
Kiselyov’s frightening report showed an underwater missile being launched just off the coast of Donegal before the entire country and neighbouring Britain are enveloped in a tsunami.
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The host then claims that the resulting “extreme doses of radiation” will turn everything into “a radioactive desert”.
As a TV personality, Kiselyov is one part journalist, but he is also two parts circus ringmaster and Putin propagandist. He has form as the Kremlin’s resident low-rent in-house Nostradamus.
In 2014, he described Russia as the only country capable of turning the US into “radioactive ash” in an incendiary comment at the height of tensions over the Crimea referendum.
Kiselyov stood in his studio in front of a gigantic image of a mushroom cloud produced after a nuclear attack, with the words “into radioactive ash”.
As Russia prepared to invade Ukraine in late February this year, Kiselyov told viewers across Russia’s 11 time zones that the West may be blown to smithereens with "more than 500 nuclear warheads" if it continued to threaten Moscow.
Russian State TV claimed an underwater nuclear drone could completely destroy the British Isles.
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Russian State TV claimed an underwater nuclear drone could completely destroy the British Isles.
Nostradamus, the 16th-century French astrologer, had some success in foreseeing the Great Fire of London and the French Revolution. However, Kiselyov’s clairvoyance is much more about invoking doomsday scenarios to cow a domestic audience into thinking they need a strong leader to protect them from domestic and foreign enemies.
The aim of much of his output and that of other notorious broadcasters, such as Vladimir Solovyov, Olga Skabeeva and Margarita Simonyan, is not to inform the audience.
By distorting the information space with erroneous reports, contradictory information, and blatant lies, Kiselyov and his ilk aim to blur the lines between reality and fiction.
As the host of the weekly Sunday show of Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week) and deputy head of Russian state TV VGTRK, Kiselyov is one of the most powerful figures in Russian media disseminating Putin’s ideologies.
Kiselyov himself was the subject of a travel ban and asset freeze by the EU after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Russia eradicated the remaining independent media after its invasion of Ukraine, allowing state television and Kremlin-friendly press to dominate a narrative about a special operation to de-nazify Ukraine.
Even in the restrictive climate under President Vladimir Putin, Russia still had a few independent voices in television, newspapers and online before the invasion.
However, regressive new rules ordered after the operation was launched – which have made it illegal to call the military action an "invasion" or disseminate "fake" news about it – altered the landscape and led to the closure of TV Rain, Radio Echo of Moscow, and an array of oppositionist news sites.
The majority of the independent journalists working for these outlets fled the country fearing they could be jailed for 15 years for breaking the new laws.
Besides his psychic powers, Kiselyov has a penchant for extravagant tirades demonising the West, stigmatising homosexuals and portraying Ukraine as a country overrun by violent fascists.
One of the most notorious of his outbursts came on a Rossiya 1 talk show in 2012, when he said gay people should be banned from donating blood and sperm, and that if they were killed in a car crash "their hearts should be buried in the ground or burnt as unfit for helping to prolong anyone's life".
Viewers are variously shocked, confused and entertained by Kiselyov’s near-foaming performances. Some lap it up like Fox News infotainment, but those in more remote parts of Russia view it as part of Russia's real face-off with the fast-encroaching West.
The middle-class intelligentsia in urban western Russia and the younger generation have long switched off while their parents leave it on in the background in the kitchen.
The older generation may say they do not believe what they hear from Kiselyov and co, but the wall-to-wall propaganda drips into their subconscious from constant osmosis.
Just three weeks ago, my mother-in-law in Moscow asked us on Facetime whether it was true Poland was about to invade Russia. She had heard something from state-controlled news but couldn’t recall the source.
My wife and I assured her that it wasn’t going to happen. Her husband overheard the conversation and threatened to fling the portable television out the window of their 18-storey apartment.
