Mrs. Simoyan is one of the most active and powerful war criminals in terrorist Russia. She heads a huge propaganda empire and is frequent guest in the propaganda TV shows in Russia. (Wikipedia)
Our Russian Lands, Our Russian People?
Below is an example of her work. Her narrative lacks any sense of connecting with the reality of millions of people in Ukraine, who see themselves lethally attacked by an invasion army – Simoyan shows no empathy. She shows no respect for the clear commitment of Ukrainians to their democratically elected government, no respect for the overwhelming support of the Ukrainian people for their army and the disgust that reigns in Ukraine seeing the thousands of war crimes that Russians committed in Ukraine. She speaks to comfort and motivate Russians of a false reality, in which Russians are victims of the West and need to defend themselves from Evil. She suggests that Ukraine is Russian Land – in total denial of the international realities including Russian written commitments since the divorce of Russia and Ukraine in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Propaganda works. Many Russians take these narratives on, even people outside of Russia repeat these fairy tales. These stories feels good to them, for various reasons. But they bring death and destruction and war to free, democratic Ukraine and perhaps to other countries. A lethal criminal type of propaganda based not on communist totalitarianism, but on an archaic nationalism.
A Nuclear Explosion Over Siberia – Oct 2, 2023
Reactions from Russia
The mayor of Novosibirsk, Anatoly Lokot, criticized Simonyan’s statement. According to him, the consequences of above-ground nuclear explosions “can last” for millennia.
State Duma deputy (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) from the Altai Territory Maria Prusakova recorded an appeal to Simonyan. She stated that Siberians “took the words of the RT editor-in-chief about a nuclear explosion over Siberia as a deep insult.”
The Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences told NGS that a thermonuclear explosion would have catastrophic consequences for Siberia, it is impossible to calculate its consequences, and millions of people could die.
A more complete review of critical voices of Simoyan’s proposition was compiled here.
Legally it is okay in Russia to say such thing on public television – according to the “authorities” …
Russian Internal Affairs Ministry says no legal violations found in RT executive’s suggestion that Russia detonate nuclear bomb ‘somewhere over Siberia’
Reacting to the Critics of Her Proposition
Level 1 – Threats of Legal Prosecution
How Mrs. Simoyan dealt with the critics after her crazy idea of explosing a nuclear bomb in the atmosphere above Siberia.
Level 2 – Complete Denial – I never said this
How Mrs. Simoyan denied a few day later that she even ever suggested to explode a nuclear bomb over Siberia in the first place!
A Parody
Her Biographical Stations
Margarita Simonovna Simonyan (Russian: Маргарита Симоновна Симоньян; born 6 April 1980) is a Russian propagandist and media executive. She is the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, as well as the state-owned media group Rossiya Segodnya.
In 2022 and 2023, Margarita Simonyan was sanctioned by the European Union, United Kingdom, and other states for her central role in state propaganda before and during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Early life, family and education
Simonyan was born in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, into an Armenian family. Both her parents are descendants of Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire. Her father’s family, originally from Trabzon, settled in Crimea during the Armenian genocide of 1915. During World War II, they were deported by Stalin’s NKVD secret police to the Urals along with thousands of other Hamshen Armenians. Her father was born in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk). Her mother was born in Sochi to an Armenian family that had fled the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks in the late 19th century. Her two grandfathers were World War II veterans. Simonyan has described herself as both Armenian and Russian.
Her family owns a restaurant in the town of Moldovka in Adlersky City District, Sochi. Simonyan has stated that she is from a working-class family and decided at an early age that she wanted to become a journalist, first working for the local newspaper, and then for a local television station while studying journalism at Kuban State University.
She spent a year as an exchange student in Bristol, New Hampshire, in 1995 under the FLEX Program (Future Leaders Exchange Program).
Career
Simonyan, as a correspondent, covered the Second Chechen War, and also serious flooding of the Krasnodar region, for her local television station, receiving an award for “professional courage”. In 2002, she became a regional correspondent for Russia’s national Rossiya television channel and covered the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. Simonyan, one of the first correspondents to arrive at the scene, witnessed the killing of 334 people, 186 of them children. She told an interviewer “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” and that she ‘cried frequently’ while trying to write about it. She then moved to Moscow where she joined the Russian pool of Kremlin reporters.
She was the first vice-president of the Russian National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters and a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. In 2010, her first book, Heading to Moscow! was published.
In 2018, Simonyan wrote the script for The Crimean Bridge. Made with Love!, a film directed by her husband, Keosayan. The film attracted scathing reviews, and was even the lowest-rated film on several film review aggregators, with Simonyan’s script widely panned. Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny released a video in March 2020, alleging serious corruption during the production of the film, with state funds intended for film production being siphoned off to Simonyan’s relatives.
Editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya
Simonyan was only 25 when appointed editor-in-chief of RT (then known as Russia Today) in 2005, but had been working in journalism since she was 18. She stated in a 2008 interview that “her age often leads people to make assumptions about how she got her job.” Andrei Richter, the director of the Moscow Media Law and Policy Institute and a journalism professor at Moscow State University, suggests that she was “appointed because she is well-connected.” She is a Kremlin loyalist who is close to President Vladimir Putin.
RT began broadcasting on 10 December 2005 with a staff of 300 journalists, including approximately 70 from outside Russia. Simonyan frequently addresses media questions about RT’s journalistic and political stance. At its launch, Simonyan stated that RT’s intent was to have a “professional format” like the BBC, CNN and Euronews that would “reflect Russia’s opinion of the world” and present a “more balanced picture” of Russia. She told a reporter that the government would not dictate content and that “Censorship by government in this country is prohibited by the constitution.”