It might be the first case in nearly three years that Russian state TV practiced freedom of speech and gave airtime to one of the voices of the opposition in a live broadcast, with almost no interruption. For people living in a democracy, this may be hard to comprehend, but just imagine if all that you heard from your mainstream media were the same propaganda messages, every day. In the case of Russia, these messages are “Russia is not involved in the conflict in Donbas,” “there is a civil war in Ukraine,” and “the Ukrainian government is killing its own citizens.” And suddenly, out of the blue, a person saying completely the opposite appears in prime time live on state TV. Saying something that the audience has never heard from state TV. That is exactly what has happened recently on air of a Russian state propaganda channel.
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After the broadcast, Leonid Gozman uploaded the video to Youtube. He said that later it was deleted “due to the large amount of views,” however now it is available on his Facebook page. The fact that the central Russian propaganda TV channel allowed these thoughts be expressed on air of one of the central channels is surprising, as it the media landscape in Russia is severely limited in freedom of expression and most of the channels broadcast the government’s point of view. This incident raises questions whether Russian TV is employing new tactics. Many Ukrainian experts are of the opinion that maintaining the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (“DNR” and “LNR”) in Donbas has become too expensive for Russia because of the sanctions. Thus, it’s likely that Russia will try to get rid of the republics in different ways. For example, this opinion was expressed at the end of 2016 by Georgiy Tuka, the Deputy Minister on the Temporary Occupied Territories and IDPs in Ukraine: "We know from open source data that Russia’s money supplies become smaller. This is a result of the sanctions that were imposed against the country. I am confident that they will give up support for 'DNR' and 'LNR.' But they will stand for Crimea until the end. And it is very important not to reduce the pressure of the sanctions. The most likely way of returning Crimea is by means of centrifugal processes that will start within Russia."Read also: Russian involvement in Ukraine’s Donbas “republics”: 10 things you should know
The scandalous opinion that Ukraine should give up its hopes of returning Crimea in return for Russia supposedly leaving Donbas alone has been also expressed in Ukraine. The program "60 minutes" on Rossiya-1: Here is the text of parts of the the 60 minuteTrending Now
Read also: A guide to Russian Propaganda. Part 1: Propaganda prepares Russia for war
