"OK, we will send troops to protect the Russian-speaking population. The NATO countries will be worried! Berlin! Paris! London! Brussels! Are they ready to burn under our missile strikes?" said the star presenter of the Rossiya 1 channel, Vladimir Soloviev, on August 18, referring to the proposal of several countries to ban tourist visas for Russians in the European Union.
Television, which is accustomed to this kind of provocation in "a propagandist and patriotic atmosphere," as Françoise Daucé, director of the Center for the Study of the Russian, Caucasian and Central European Worlds, reminded us, is nevertheless losing ground.
"The Russian state propaganda conveyor belt, which costs 100 billion rubles a year [1.7 billion euros] has begun to malfunction," The Moscow Times newspaper reported on Monday, August 22. "Federal TV channels, which talk about the defeat of the 'Nazis' in the morning, the strength of the economy in the afternoon and suggest nuclear strikes against Europe in the evening, are rapidly losing viewers to the internet and messaging services [for Russians] seeking alternative information."
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