The Tale of British Journalist who Found "Donbass Combatants" among Russian Football Fans (PHOTO)
29.06.2016 - 10:24
Journalists of the British ‘The Independent’ are sure: there are “pro-Russian fighters who participated in combat actions in Donbass occupied by Russia” among Russian football fans at Euro-2016 in France.
At least Kim Sengupta tells so in his article for The Independent: Euro 2016: “Russian insider reveals hooligans are ‘more than Ultras’ trained in martial arts and boxing”.
At his own Twitter account Sengupta defines himself as “Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent for the Independent”.
It is however unclear which department – defence or diplomacy – should those fantasies about “Russian fighters” refer to. But these are the facts: Sengupta writes a fictional article about some "Nikolay" who fought in Donbass and now has come to France — apparently to beat defenceless English footbal fans.
The British journalist tells that he has already met “Nikolay” two years ago in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk where “Nikolay” dressed in cammies «had been happy to talk about his home at a southern suburb of Moscow, his deeply held Orthodox Christian faith, his previous service in Russia’s naval infantry and his empathy with the Donbass Peoples Militia”.
“Now in Marseilles, in T-shirt and shorts, he does not want to go into any of that, because, he is convinced «the British media want to show all Russian supporters in a certain negative way”, — Sengupta says in his article, but he doesn’t specify how he managed to meet the very same person in different corners of the Old World and recognize him at once.
It is hard to disagree with “footbal fan Nikolay” (it’s noteworthy that Independent article offers no photo of that enigmatic “Nikolay” or any other evidence of meeting and conversation) — Western media do create an image of the Russian “wildlings”, well-trained and pretending to be footbal fans.
Sengupta’s article serves the same purpose: he does his best to create prejudice against those Russians who have come to France to visit Euro-2016. His “Nikolay” is painted with generous strokes of Western propaganda paint.
One may find all the cliches and banalities there: a tale about «Russian footbal bands being trained for fights — they do boxing and martial arts that is why they move in formations and can carry out ambushes”.
Journalist’s moves work: the English readers are revolted and demand that “Russian combatants” should be arrested or deported and Russian football team — disqualfied for good: may it never be invited for Euro cups again.
It was quite predictable that Ukrainian media were more that eager to follow that hoax: they wrote at least dozen of articles about “Russian fighter in Marseilles” .
The screen above shows news aggregator with Ukrainian articles dedicated to the topic.
Basically this Independent article is interesting just because it exposes Western journalism practices. Under cover of investigations and opinion pieces there often comes dainty propaganda products which make European readers think of Russia as a dangerous neighbour ready to attack Europe.
With such informational background NATO tighthening its folds around Russia may seem reasonable and righteous for the Europeans. Similar articles in the Western media serve exactly this aim despite the topic is sports not politics.
