Russia is facing hard times—both on the battlefield and the home front—and the country’s leading propagandists are laser-focused on distracting the domestic population by demonstrating that things are even worse abroad. Besides showcasing clips from Tucker Carlson of Fox News and social media posts by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his son Don Jr., Kremlin-controlled propagandists have seized on another piece of convenient agitprop: a soon-to-be-released Breitbart-produced film, My Son Hunter.
State media propagandists are hard at work promoting the flick, which is set to premiere on Sept. 7 and apparently centers on various conspiracy theories about U.S. President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
A promotional trailer for My Son Hunter has been broadcast in its entirety on numerous Russian state television programs. “Sex, drugs, the notebook from hell, and selling off America. The authors of the new film about Biden Jr. promised to show all of this to the audiences,” host of state TV show Vesti at 20:00, Ernest Mackevičius, announced in his introduction of the trailer on the Rossiya-1 channel this week. The seven-minute segment included the promo in its entirety, along with clips of Tucker Carlson and Senator Ron Johnson blaming the FBI for “interfering in elections” by not investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop.
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Russia routinely boasts of its moral purity as compared to the ‘decadent, decaying’ West, but Kremlin-controlled state television dropped all pretense while promoting the movie. Abandoning their usual stringent standards with respect to nudity and sexual content, the state TV show didn’t shy away from repeatedly airing oodles of illicit clips starring the president’s son.
A similar pattern was followed on other state media shows. Introducing the trailer during Friday’s broadcast of the state TV show 60 Minutes, host Evgeny Popov described the film as “scandalous” and said that Republicans produced it with their own funds because “they got tired of waiting for justice.”
Popov opined that the pending release of My Son Hunter is intended to help Republicans in the upcoming midterms. He noted, “Trump’s main ‘trump card’ is the notebook of the president’s son, in all of its beauty—with all of its contents.” Co-host Olga Skabeeva added, “We’re waiting for the premiere and hoping for a big success in the United States, to bring our beloved Trump back into power.”
The former U.S. president’s legal troubles have in recent weeks prompted Moscow to question the viability of his potential presidential run, as compared to the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, known in Russia as “Number Two.” Nonetheless, the widening gap between Trump’s followers and the rest of America is perceived in Russia as a unique opportunity for the Kremlin—and the persistent targeting of Hunter Biden, the U.S. president’s perceived Achilles heel, appears to be an important part of team Putin’s strategy.
“An interesting situation is shaping up. America is on the verge of a civil war, because these accusations [against Trump] won’t just resolve themselves. Europe is on the verge of civil war. Britain is getting its police ready to suppress the riots,” Vladimir Solovyov said in the latest broadcast of his state TV show.
Brainstorming about how to make civil unrest abroad a reality, Solovyov brought up various issues brewing in Europe and the United States and pondered out loud, “Why don’t we heat up all of those crises?” The discussion veered into destabilizing countries considered to be hostile towards Russia—for example, by mobilizing the pro-Russian elements, organizing protests, and otherwise stirring up potential unrest.
With respect to America, Russian propagandists see distrust of U.S. elections as one of the key elements that will prompt Americans to take to the streets. Appearing on Solovyov’s show, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova pointed out that over half of Americans no longer have faith in American elections. She accused the FBI, Facebook, and Twitter of “election interference” for allegedly suppressing materials related to Hunter Biden. Zakharova bemoaned an alleged wide-ranging “conspiracy” against Trump, which she claimed is being led by unnamed intelligence agencies.
Andrei Bezrukov, a Russian spy whose life story served as the inspiration for the popular TV show The Americans, predicted that investigations and prosecutions against members of the intelligence community suspected of “targeting” Trump would indeed take place, in the event the Republicans win majorities in the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections this November. Bezrukov further speculated that the GOP would attempt to impeach Biden.
Solovyov likewise accused “the deep state” of conspiring against the former U.S. president and opined that according to American laws, a “Special Prosecutor” should be appointed to investigate and criminally charge the FBI agents responsible for hounding Trump. Smirking, the Kremlin’s top propagandist quipped, “How about my candidacy for that position?”
