Russian talk shows – Talkmaster Solovyov: his master’s sinister servant – News

The Kremlin says it wants to “denazify” Ukraine. That’s absurd. But in Russia you see things differently. Also because of Talkmaster Solovyov.

Dramatic music sounds, the moderator dressed in black enters the stage. The sermon begins, first ingratiating, then hateful and cynical. Welcome to the world of Vladimir Solovyov. He covers the audience with the messages that the Kremlin wants to have placed, mostly exaggerated and emotionally amplified. It sounds like this lately: “It is clear that we are now de facto at war with the NATO countries. We will crush the NATO war machine, and also the citizens of the countries that belong to NATO. There will be no mercy.”

Solovyov’s guests are in no way inferior to him, even surpassing him, such as a political scientist who threatened Europe – and especially Warsaw – with a nuclear strike should NATO interfere in Ukraine.

“Third World War” and “Nuclear Strike”

Margarita Simonyan, the boss of the state foreign broadcaster RT, is a permanent guest at Solovyov. Lately she has been talking more and more about a third world war or a nuclear strike. According to her, the Ukrainian leadership is “an ulcer that needs to be removed, otherwise it will affect Europe”.

Tamina Kutscher is Editor-in-Chief at Decoder, a German platform that translates and categorizes independent Russian media. For them it is clear: The Russian talk shows have prepared the ground for the war in recent years: “The topic of these talk shows was mostly Ukraine, the liberal Russian opposition and the West – all as an enemy.”

The function of these programs is to lash out, to amplify emotionally. Parallel to the escalation of violence against Ukraine, the rhetoric in the talk shows has intensified, both externally, with the dehumanization of the opponent, and internally, against imaginary internal enemies, according to Tamina Kutscher.

And how seriously do you have to take talk of nuclear war? Expert Kutscher believes that the decision about such a nuclear strike will be made in the Kremlin and not on these talk shows. But it’s about creating a certain mood, maybe also a readiness for such a nuclear strike.

weapon in information warfare

Also wonders if Solovyov believes what he says. The expert assumes that the talk show host shares President Putin’s world view and – like RT boss Simonyan – sees himself as a weapon in information warfare. It doesn’t matter if statements are illogical. Solovyov is therefore also called a chameleon. “It’s often the case with him that he brings contradictory things together and pulls out all the stops, just as it suits him,” says Kutscher.

So it was no problem for Solovyov to lead a rhetorical campaign against the West and at the same time own two villas on Lake Como. But since the beginning of the war, the talk show host has been banned from traveling in the EU. His villas were confiscated. But Russian state television has increased the frequency of Solovyov’s broadcasts. The black-clad servant of his master is now allowed to drip his propagandistic poison into the audience almost every day.