I saw on Twitter that Channel One (Russia’s main state TV channel) is supporting the “Give Firewood” campaign. I was sure it was Photoshopped and that Ukrainian internet brigades were trolling.
No. It really is the actual Channel One. Somewhere in between reports about the country’s greatness under its wise ruler and stories about how the entire population, in one united impulse, is demanding troops be sent first to Ukraine, then to Syria, it is taking part in the following campaign:
What’s really missing from Channel One’s segment is the following calculation: If a truckload of firewood costs 5,000 rubles, then by selling Dmitry Peskov’s wristwatch—the presidential press secretary in a country where “everyone survives as best they can” and “winter is a terrible time for the elderly”—you get 37,000,000 rubles / 5,000 rubles per truckload = 7,400 truckloads of firewood for the country’s pensioners.
You could also add: during his honeymoon, Dmitry Peskov was yachting at a rate of 5,200 truckloads of firewood per week.
Better yet: if this damn Mickey Mouse operation—Channel One—were shut down once and for all, then with the budget subsidy saved, it would be possible to buy 800,000 truckloads of firewood every year. In that case, winter probably wouldn’t be such a “terrible time of year” for pensioners.
P.S. And this is also quite something against the backdrop of firewood and winter killing off pensioners: