Moscow has released a propaganda video showing that Europeans have many problems and live worse, but are being misled by their leaders, who blame Vladimir Putin.
Russia Today (RT), the Kremlin’s propaganda channel, is once again targeting Europe, this time with a Christmas video.
The material satirizes how European governments and leaders blame Putin for all of Europe's problems.
The ironic message presents the issues Europeans are currently facing: migrants, higher electricity bills, inflation, a meager Christmas - "all because of Putin."
Russian propaganda aims to push criticism towards Moscow to the point of absurdity in order to completely discredit it. The idea is simple: if Putin is to blame for everything, then he is not to blame for anything.
Russia Today has also produced clips with false claims trying to show that Europeans are experiencing a Christmas marked by poverty.
In December 2022, the channel aired a video suggesting that Europeans spent 2021 in abundance, had dark holidays in 2022, and in 2023 were forced to eat their pets.
In the first sequence - a scene from 2021, a family celebrates Christmas, and a girl receives a hamster wearing a bowtie as a gift.
The following year, during the same period, the girl's father is forced to build a system to turn the hamster wheel into a generator to illuminate the Christmas tree.
In the last sequence, in 2023, the family is clearly living in extreme poverty and cold. The father finds the hamster's bowtie in the soup, suggesting that his wife had to cook the pet for the family to survive.
"Merry Christmas 'anti-Russians'! If your press doesn't tell you everything, RT is available with a VPN," the clip concluded.
The broadcast of Russia Today has been banned in EU member states since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
T.D.