The announcement that
Making matters even more alarming is the outspoken conservative who will take charge of the new venture designed to replace RIA Novsoti, Rossia Segodnya. His name is Dmitry Kiselyov, and he has often courted controversy in his previous position as a news anchor on the domestic Rossiya 1 TV channel.
For example, last year Kiselyov made controversial comments regarding homosexuality - a very touchy subject in Russia - which later went viral. This clip features the comments and a translation:
The Moscow Times reported at the time:
In April 2012, Kiselyov stated on his show that he believed anti-gay propaganda laws did not go far enough and that homosexuals should be banned from donating blood and sperm. Taking it even further, he said if a homosexual died in a car accident, his or her heart should be buried or burned, but never given to someone as a transplant since the organs would be "unsuitable for extending the life of another."
Kiselyov went on the radio to defend his remarks but ended up offending even more people:
In his Sunday interview with Ekho Moskvy, Kiselyov defended his remarks, stating that he simply wanted Russia to become more "civilized" by joining the U.S., EU, Japan and Arabic countries in banning homosexuals from donating blood and organs. He explained that homosexuals cannot "hide" what they are and that in the U.S. the Food and Drug Administration keeps a database of everyone in the U.S. who has had a same-sex sexual relation over the past twenty years, with the equivalent EU agency doing the same.
In most Western countries as a result of the AIDS crisis there are restrictions on men who identify themselves as having sex with men donating blood. The FDA, however, does not maintain a database of homosexuals.
When asked about Vlad Tornovy, 22, who was murdered in May after coming out as gay, Kiselyov explained that the problem was that homosexuals continue to "provoke" the majority. He added he did not regret his statement and that it is the people who organize gay pride parades who should be ashamed.
The timing of Kiselyov's appointment suggests an official sanctioning of other recent extreme views.
According to the Washington Post, Kiselyov has railed against the Ukrainian protesters in Kyiv on his show in the past few weeks, arguing that the Sweden and Poland are engaged in a conspiracy to encourage the demonstrations. To make his point about how terrible life in EU would be for Ukrainians, he played part of a Swedish public television show that features characters in brown and yellow costumes designed to teach children how to go to the bathroom.
As the Economist notes, Kiselyov has a history with Ukraine. He worked on a pro-government Ukrainian channel during the Orange Revolution. His reporting has become notorious amongst the protesters - during one recent broadcast, a young activist handed a Rossiya 1 reporter a small statue, telling the camera "Pass this Oscar to the Russian Channel and to Dmitry Kiselev for the lies and nonsense you are telling people about Maidan."
He certainly seems a strange choice for the head of a state news agency, but it's no doubt deliberate. RIA Novosti had come under criticism from the Kremlin in 2011 for what was perceived as (relatively) sympathetic coverage to anti-Putin protests. Under Kiselyov, Rossia Segodnya (which translates as Russia Today but is said to remain separate from the international RT news service), will almost certainly not make the same mistake - Kiselyov is already fond of explicitly comparing Putin's most popular critic, Alexei Navalny, to Adolf Hitler.
Even in their announcement of their own demise, RIA Novosti reporters were able to see the bigger shifts taking place. "The move is the latest in a series of shifts in Russia's news landscape," the agency reported, "which appear to point toward a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector."