(John Ransom, Headline USA) Addressing a packed soccer stadium, Russian president Vladimir Putin was approaching the end of his speech, with a grand highlight, when Russian state television cut away from him and muted his audio while playing patriotic music, said the media-gossip site Deadline.
“Oh man. So after Putin’s feed cuts out, so does Maria Zakharova’s mic,” tweeted Bianna Golodryga, CNN Global Affairs analyst.
“Can’t think of a more effective way to showcase what things in a post-Western technology Russia will look like…,” Golodryga added.
Zakharova is Director of the Information and Press Department in Putin’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Deadline.
Well, at least she is for now. But generally, failure wasn’t treated so leniently in Putin’s old, KGB-run Soviet state.
Oh man. So after Putin’s feed cuts out, so does Maria Zakharova’s mic.
Can’t think of a more effective way to showcase what things in a post-Western technology Russia will look like… https://t.co/RzX3APp1zJ
— Bianna Golodryga (@biannagolodryga) March 18, 2022
The Kremlin quickly claimed that the deleted Putin scene was just a “technical failure in the broadcast.”
But that’s not how the foundation for democracy started by opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, saw it.
“Well [that], or sabotage,” tweeted the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Some in the crowd say that they were forced to attend by their bosses, said the Washington Post, about the speech promoting a war that has questionable popularity inside Russia.
“We are forced to go to all such events. We can’t say no. It’s out of the question,” said a Moscow social worker, Lena, who spoke anonymously, according to the Washington Post.
“I hate this whole thing, and I am very afraid. They told us that if we don’t go it’s going to be very strict this time. No explanations will be accepted. We would be fired right away. I have no way out.”
Which, ironically, is the same dilemma that faces Putin and Western leaders in the Ukraine war, who cant seem to find a way out with a negotiated peace.
One Russian protestor who went on the record as opposed to the war, journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, interrupted the broadcast of a popular state-controlled newscast, according to the BBC with a sign that read: “No war, stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.”
And perhaps the technical glitch that left Putin’s biggest scene on the cutting room floor was a more subtle means of protest, as suggested by Navalny’s foundation. Or it was just more Soviet slap-dash management apparent as the spotlight shines more brightly on the Big Onion, Moscow.
