Remember the Russian news anchor who last year said that the hearts of gay people are “unsuitable for  human life” and should be burned deep in the ground and burned? A few months ago, Vladimir Putin reorganized all state media, closed down outlets that were seemingly friendly to the West, and put that same news anchor in charge of the entire state-controlled Russian news conglomerate.
And now he’s back.
“Russia is the only country in the world realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash,” Dmitry Kiselyov (also known as Dmitri Kisilev) said on his weekly cable TV news show Sunday night.
The AFP reports that “Kiselyov made the comment to support his argument that the United States and President Barack Obama were living in fear of Russia led by President Vladimir Putin amid the Ukraine crisis.”
His programme was broadcast as the first exit polls were being published showing an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voting to leave Ukraine and join Russia.
He stood in his studio in front of a gigantic image of a mushroom cloud produced after a nuclear attack, with the words “into radioactive ash”.
“Americans themselves consider Putin to be a stronger leader than Obama,” he added, pointing to opinion polls which then popped up on the screen.
“Why is Obama phoning Putin all the time and talking to him for hours on end?” he asked.
Of course, at a time of international crisis, Republican politicians in the U.S. are doing all they can to rally around the president — of Russia.
Senator John McCain wrote an op-ed published in the New York Times late last week: “Obama Has Made America Look Weak.”
Tea Party and other Republican Senators and Congressman have spent the past few weeks all doing the same: attacking Obama. Even Kiselyov mentions the “support” Putin has in the U.S., thanks to anti-Obama “patriots.”
Watch Kiselyov’s broadcast:
//www.youtube.com/embed/EkMT_oLempE