VOX: Major Russian TV network says US intelligence carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack

1/9/2015
Max Fisher

A video still of Russian "analyst" Alexei Martynov on LifeNews

LifeNews, a mainstream Russian TV news channel, aired a segment on Thursday in which a regular guest and "expert political analyst" stated that the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris had in fact been carried out by United States intelligence agencies.

The guest, Alexei Martynov, suggested that US intelligence had launched the Charlie Hebdo attack in order to sabotage the global effort against Islamist terrorism, which he argued Russia is leading. Martynov also argued that the attack was meant to pressure French President Francois Hollande into maintaining Western economic sanctions against Russia.

The segment ran for 10 minutes, during which Martynov's views were presented as fact and went largely unchallenged. A video of the interview can be seen on LifeNews' website. The network announced the segment in a tweet reading, "Political analyst Alexei Martynov: Terrorist attack in Paris staged by US intelligence agencies." LifeNews is not state-run, but it is avowedly pro-Putin, and has a large viewership in Russia that surpasses some major state-run networks.

Martynov runs the pro-Putin think tank International Institute for New States and is sometimes featured on Russian state and pro-Kremlin media as an expert analyst. He has also been quoted by The Nation as an expert on United States foreign policy.

Marynov further argued that the United States is seeking to heighten European fears of terrorism, thus making European leaders reliant on US counterterrorism and cementing American hegemony over Europe. This is aimed specifically at Russia, he said, and meant to prevent European countries from rejecting the United States and allying instead with Russia, as he implied they would surely do anyway.

Since 2012, when Vladimir Putin resumed control of the Russian presidency, the country's once-diverse private-run media has become increasingly dominated by pro-Putin voices who largely copy or even surpass state media's promotion of the Kremlin line. Russian media has increasingly embraced fringe conspiracy theories about the United States, frequently accusing the US of plotting to steal Siberia from Russia or of shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight 17 to embarrass Putin.

These conspiracy theories tend to emphasize both the evil threat of the West and the righteousness of Putin's Russia, entrenching beliefs that Russia is at war with a nefarious enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy them. They are often, unfortunately, believed.

These incidents seem silly, but are in fact a product of the information control that is increasingly the basis of Putin's rule. As Peter Pomerantsev puts it in his new book on life in Putin's Russia, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible, "TV is the only force that can unify and rule and bind this country. It's the central mechanism of a new type of authoritarianism, one far subtler than twentieth-century strains."

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