Remember that wonderful case when state propaganda portrayed the same person as both a "victim of Right Sector" (a Ukrainian far-right nationalist group) and, at the same time, a "leader of mercenaries"?
The “journalists” of the “NTV” TV channel offered their explanation:
This week, we and our colleagues inadvertently became hostages to a massive hoax. In interviews with some journalists, he said he had become a victim of Maidan supporters, while to others he claimed that he himself was an active supporter of the illegitimate authorities. The reality turned out to be far more prosaic. According to those close to him, Andrei Petkov has long suffered from severe mental illness. Ignoring this fact, Western media were quick to accuse Russian journalists of insinuation.
...
Apparently, he enjoyed giving interviews so much that even from his hospital bed he could not let go of the role. And when he grew tired of the image of a German activist, he adopted another one. And he was no less convincing in it. Bloggers were the first to spot the “defector-activist.” A scandal broke out. Journalists were even accused of staging the whole thing. Western media quickly picked up this convenient version. Without even suspecting that they were blaming it all on an unwell person.
http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/904998/#ixzz2ytBfwNcD
Of course, we were not expecting a proper apology or the only truthful explanation possible, something along the lines of: "The thing is, we, the journalists of NTV and Rossiya-1, are corrupt, hypocritical crooks. We no longer merely manipulate information — we flat-out lie all day long, so we are ready to use any lunatic we can. Too bad you caught us at it."
But to say they were “involuntary hostages” and to end a report about their own mega-failure with the line “Western media quickly picked up this convenient version” — that is really something.
Update:
AAAAAAAAA. This is something else (via a link from Rubanov).
In the report by even more deranged propagandists, he is “a native of Mykolaiv, a surgeon who saved the lives of 200 children, who came to support his fellow countrymen in the struggle against neo-Nazism”:
Start watching at 2:10
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