“All my friends support Putin”

Wednesday evening on the “Pervij Kanal”, the most-watched TV station in Russia: “Good evening, here’s the news,” greets presenter Andrei Ukharev, behind whom an animated globe is rotating. “The operation to open humanitarian corridors to evacuate peaceful residents has yielded no results.” Ukharev raises an eyebrow. “The government in Kyiv is to blame for this.”

A map with escape corridors will appear. The situation is getting worse, there is a humanitarian catastrophe in Mariupol. “This is also confirmed by those who were able to escape from the city occupied by the Nazis,” says the moderator. Those trying to flee will be shot in the back.

The report that followed shows elderly Ukrainian women “sleeping into Russian military buses,” a Russian military commander accusing Ukrainian “nationalists” of using weapons to force Ukrainian citizens to erect barricades, thereby preventing the peaceful population from fleeing .