– Today it was discovered that some restaurants in the once great Great Britain will serve squirrels, says Olga Skabejeva on live TV. – Considering that there are lots of animals in the parks, why don’t they eat, since they have a food shortage? The extract from the Russian debate program “60 minutes” has been shared on Twitter and ridiculed by an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister. The talk show host further criticizes Britain’s spending on weapons in Ukraine, despite its own financial problems. – They killed a squirrel, and still contributed with Howitzer artillery weapons, she says further. Olga Skabejeva hosts the Russian TV program “60 Minute”. Skabeyeva is one of Russia’s most influential talk show hosts, and is known for making gross and undocumented accusations on live TV. Many people know her as “Putin’s iron puppet”, or “Putin’s propaganda chief on TV”. She is one of the few Russian women who has sanctions against her from Western countries and who is blacklisted by the EU. – Not ordinary propaganda rhetoric It is not new that Russian propagandists go hard against the major powers that send weapons to Ukraine, but it is rare that the allegations are so crude, says political scientist Jørn Holm-Hansen at Oslo Met. Jørn Holm-Hansen researches, among other things, Russian politics at Oslo Met. Photo: Private / He researches, among other things, Russian politics and propaganda, and has followed Skabejeva’s programme. – It’s imaginative, you might say, but there are also more extreme claims on this programme, he says. – Skabejeva has said, among other things, that Russia should use the opportunity to drop a nuclear bomb on London when the old queen was to be buried, because then there were so many anti-Russian heads of state present. The purpose is so-called infotainment, or news as entertainment, according to Holm-Hansen. “So much hate in the comment section only shows that what we are doing is right,” writes Skabejeva under this photo on Instagram. – It is definitely a theatre. It is entertaining, and somewhat on a par with those in the US where they invite people to tell about their fate and get bullied. Holm-Hansen says the program often puts forward arguments on the far right, and that the governing authorities often try their hand at “various hair-raising claims”. – If they notice that something doesn’t work, they stop doing it, he says, and believes that the squirrel theory probably belongs in this category. – I don’t think there is any reason to believe that most Russians are so uninformed about conditions around the world that they think it is common to eat squirrels further west in Europe. May have been inspired by environmental campaign A little over a week ago, the organization Exmoor Squirrel Project launched a campaign in Great Britain, to re-introduce red squirrels to British nature. This requires that the population of gray squirrels decreases in a humane way, because they are better at getting food, take up more space and tolerate a virus that kills the red ones. The organization therefore wants people to set out traps on their property, and for restaurants to start serving dishes with squirrel meat in them. A red squirrel attacked a gray squirrel in competition for food. The Exmoor Squirrel Project says out-competition is causing the red squirrel to disappear. Photo: Robert F. Bukaty / AP – If we don’t start a good action plan, we won’t know our landscape as a whole anymore, says leader Kerry Hosegood to the BBC. She points out that the gray squirrels have caused great damage to British forests. – The red squirrel is the species that belongs here, and in the UK the population is down to 120,000 reds compared to what we estimate to be 3 million invading greys. This case was picked up by several major British media, but not discussed directly on “60 Minutes” in Russia. Contributed with the second most military support in 2022 It is nothing new that Russian media criticize Western arms support to Ukraine. Britain in particular has been subjected to the propagandists. In 2022, the country contributed military aid worth 2.3 billion pounds, or almost 30 billion kroner, say the British authorities themselves. The amount is the second largest that any country has contributed since the war started, and is one they have committed to matching in 2023. Only the United States spends more money on military support for Ukraine. Ukrainian recruits at a military base in Great Britain. Photo: HENRY NICHOLLS / Reuters British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said when the Ukrainian president visited the country last month that all types of arms support would be relevant – including British fighter jets. At the same time, he struggled to gain control of the British economy. The UK is the only G7 country that has less to contend with now than before the pandemic. At the start of 2023, inflation was over 10 per cent. The national debt is on the rise, and both private individuals and companies struggle with high living costs. Sunak has promised to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce the national debt. Three of the five promises he made to the British people until 2023 were about the economy. The British embassy in Norway would not comment on Skabejeva’s claims, or the spending of money in Ukraine in connection with the challenges at home.
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“Iron dolly for Putin” Britan claims a squirrel for dinner – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
