Status: 13.10.2023, 06:38 a.m.
By: Franziska Schwarz
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Kremlin chief Putin and RT chief Simonyan at an award ceremony in Moscow in December © 2022 Mikhail Klimentyev/Imago
Russian propagandists are celebrating the war against Israel – a prominent example is RT boss Margarita Simonyan.
MOSCOW – Russia has its own ties to Hamas and is a close partner of Iran's main supporter. International observers accuse the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin of instrumentalizing the war in Israel for anti-Western information campaigns. This assumption has now been confirmed by the head of the Russian state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan.
Simonyan refused to condemn the terrorist organization Hamas on state television, instead expressing contempt for Russian Jews who have emigrated to Israel, portraying them as disloyal to Russia. This is reported by the independent observatory Russian Media Monitor. When asked about the role of Hamas, she simply replied: "History will tell." Here's the clip released by Russian Media Monitor founder Julia Davis on Oct. 11:
Israel war: RT chief Simonyan makes accusations against Russian Jews
Simonyan had previously made similar statements. "We are waiting for the exodus of Russian pacifists," Newsweek translated one of its social media posts in reference to the war in Israel. By "pacifists" she was presumably referring to Russians who emigrated to Israel to avoid military service in the Ukraine war.
Newsweek also echoed speculation that Moscow may have been involved in Hamas' massacre, citing Oleg Ignatov's assessment: "I haven't seen any evidence; I haven't seen them publicly, I haven't heard anything about them in my conversations. It's hard to imagine." Ignatov is a Russia expert at the think tank Crisis Group.
Zelensky condemns "terrorists like Putin or Hamas" in the Israeli war
However, some Russian propagandists vociferously expressed their joy at the attack on Israel. Vladimir Solovyov said, according to Newsweek, that the Hamas attack was a "loud slap in the face" for Israel and its intelligence services. He accused the US of failing to live up to its role as a "guarantor of peace in the region" and claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine had supplied weapons to Hamas.
Putin sees the war in Israel as an opportunity to break his international isolation due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, recently expressed concerns that the crisis in the Middle East could divert attention from the Ukraine war. On October 11, Zelensky called on the West to show Israel, as well as Ukraine, that they are not "alone."
"Terrorists like Putin or like Hamas want to take free and democratic countries hostage and they want power over those who seek peace," Zelensky said. "The terrorists will not change. They have to lose." Israel's Defense Minister Joav Gallant is scheduled to speak via video conference with NATO defense ministers on Thursday (12 October).
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RT chief Simonyan also "central figure" in Putin's propaganda in the Israel war
Simonyan is supported by Aleksei Gromov, an adviser to Putin, according to the US State Department back in August 2022 on one of its platforms. There is a yellow government phone on her desk, and in 2015 she admitted that it was a secure connection to the Kremlin "for the discussion of classified matters."
In an April 2022 debate with Solovyov – also a Putin propagandist – she accused Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and Zelensky of planning an assassination attempt on Russian propagandists. This was reported by the New Yorker. Simonyan's husband is Russian TV presenter Tigran Keosayan. The EU imposed sanctions on Simonyan in February 2022, calling her a "central figure" in Russian propaganda. (FRS)
This article was created with the help of machine support and carefully reviewed by editor Franziska Schwarz before publication.