(EDM) Russian propaganda excels at shifting the blame for every one of the country’s problems—even those caused by bad luck, devastating mismanagement, or natural causes—on to the purported main source of all disasters in the world, the United States. In the first hours after the deadly shooting in a college in Kerch, Crimea, last Wednesday (October 17), state-owned TV channels started to circulate conspiracy theories about terrorists dispatched by Ukraine and sponsored by the US (Moscow Echo, October 18). The murderous teenager turned out to be a fan of the Moscow-backed Donbas rebels, so President Vladimir Putin ended up refraining from making further such accusations against Washington in his traditional Valdai Club appearance the following day. But the Russian leader nevertheless still asserted that “it all started with the tragic events in the United States” (Kremlin.ru, October 18). Such insinuations fit the pattern of earlier absurd accusations of US astronauts deliberately drilling a hole in the International Space Station (RIA Novosti, October 3). Russia’s anti-American campaign has been in full swing this autumn as a chain of setbacks has befallen Putin’s policies. But the desired effect has been elusive. Opinion polls show that a third of Russians dare to express a positive attitude toward the US, while the 54 percent who hold a negative opinion represent a serious drop from the peak of 80 percent that was registered in early 2015 (Levada.ru, October 16). […]
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