Day after day, the Kremlin floods the world with its propaganda. In this column we present the most macabre, bizarre or perfidious gems from the propagandists’ workshop. This time: the Italian villas of Vladimir Solovyov.
There is currently no way around Vladimir Solovyov on Russian state television. The face of the propagandist, dripping with hatred and hatred, flickers almost constantly from the TV screens. The servant of the Kremlin, mostly dressed in black, instills his poison into the audience for several hours a day – almost every day. Since the beginning of the war, state television has increased the frequency of its broadcasts.
Solovyov is one of Vladimir Putin’s most ardent defenders, supporters and followers. Its mission: to pound messages, ideas and conceptions that the Kremlin wants to see placed into the minds of its viewers. For the father of eight children, no provocation is too sensational, no insult too hateful, no lie too breakneck, no contradiction too great.
This earned the talk show host the nickname chameleon. He waves his flag in any direction his master in the Kremlin wants him to go. There is only one thing he does not lose sight of in his tirades: his greatest enemy, the West. And this is how he sounds when he has talked himself into a rage again:
In the propaganda world of Solovyov
Degenerate, rotting, fascist – and worst of all Russophobic. All this is the West for Solovyov, and more. Like his colleague Dmitri Kiselyov, he also likes to rant about radioactive ash fields, which he wants to see the West transformed into. (Read more about Mister Radioactive Ash’s nuclear fantasies here.)
Solovyov recently trumpeted foaming at the mouth: “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. Mercy will be there aren’t any.”
Solovyov has probably already said goodbye to his four villas in Italy – and is ready to sacrifice them to the nuclear apocalypse, the main thing is that the hated West perishes. Or? But how is it that the defender of Putin and homeland is buying up luxury properties in Italy in the first place? An Italian journalist asked himself the same question.
In a conversation with broadcaster La7, Solovyov, in his usual manner, indulged in savage abuse and accusations. “I want to remind them that it was their fascists who came to my country, to my Russian land. The Russians didn’t come to your country. The last time it happened under Suvorov.”
“But if the Italians are fascists, why did you buy four villas in Italy?” the Italian journalist interrupts the torrent of speech. Solovyov is not used to such questions. There is no place for that in the world of Kremlin propaganda. And so the question has to be repeated twice before the perplexed Solovyov can think of an answer. “The Italians are not fascists now. When I bought the villas, the Italians remembered the Russians and loved them. But now you’ve changed everything.”
So what now? Are Italians fascists or not? Or were they, then not, and finally they were? Or did fascists only appear in Italy when Solovyov bought the villas there? Is it a coincidence then? He doesn’t seem to know exactly that either.
It wasn’t that long ago that the propagandist Benito Mussolini adored him and wrote cinematic hymns of praise to him. So the man who once came to the “Russian countryside” as a fascist. A strange hero, especially for a Russian Jew like Solovyov. But he’s not nicknamed the chameleon for nothing. Within 30 seconds, Solovyov manages to change color three times.
The talk show host’s villas
When it comes to his beloved Italian villas, Solovyov is at his best. They all stand on the shores of scenic Lake Como. One cottage has 30 rooms, the second has 14. A villa with 10.5 rooms is registered to his mother. In addition, Solovyov owns an apartment in one of the most beautiful and oldest villas in the region around the lake, in the Villa Maria in the small town of Griante.
The Italian state confiscated all these villas. Solovoiv is under sanctions. But what would even Putin’s most patriotic patriot want to do in the hated West, right? Especially since one of the villas has been occupied by the archenemy – by NATO.
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