Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has praised Fox News for its coverage, appearing on the Russian state-controlled RT network to hail the right-leaning US cable channel, whose primetime host Tucker Carlson has played down the invasion.
“We know the manners and the tricks that are being used by the western countries to manipulate media, we understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent western media,” said Lavrov, speaking in English in a studio interview on Friday.
“If you take the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view,” he said.
Sergey Lavrov(RUSSIAN foreign minister) praises Fox News for its Ukrainian coverage. pic.twitter.com/RHLJjhDyMb
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) March 18, 2022
He also denounced the social media ban of former president Donald Trump and took exception to the description of January 6 rioters as terrorists.
“But when you watch other channels, read the social networks and internet platforms, when the acting president was blocked and this censorship continues in a very big way … Whenever something is happening by the way of mass protest, mass demonstrations – which they don’t like – they immediately call it domestic terrorism.
“So it’s a war, and it’s a war which involves the methods of information terrorism,” he said.
Russian media regularly play clips of Carlson criticising the US and Ukraine, and he was still praising President Vladimir Putin hours before Russia invaded Ukraine almost four weeks ago.
In contrast, as Moscow’s bombardment escalated, Russian apologism by numerous Fox hosts, commentators and guests was being corrected on air by the network’s own national security correspondent, Jennifer Griffin.
The mental split-screen effect only sharpened earlier this week when a Fox news team on the ground in Ukraine came under Russian fire on the frontline.
Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova were both killed during a Russian attack outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Correspondent Benjamin Hall was badly wounded in the incident.
Lavrov’s comments on Friday came as six western nations accused Moscow of using the UN security council to launder disinformation and spread propaganda, after Russian diplomats again raised allegations that the US was involved in biological weapons, which have been repeatedly denied by both Washington and Ukraine.
Western diplomats slammed the claims, with Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, calling Russia’s tactics the “disinformation of the desperate”.
