***The complete post is on NewsBusters***
You may have thought CNN and MSNBC spewed outright lies and falsehoods but with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they don’t hold a candle to state-controlled RT (Russia Today). On day five of the war, RT correspondent Murad Gazdiev made a host of outlandish claims ranging from Ukrainian soldiers surrendering en masse and the civilian defense forces were organizing into “neo-Nazi battalions,” in addition to the usual falsehoods about Russian forces not intentionally attacking civilian locations.
Gazdiev opened his fictitious account with an update in the fighting around the eastern city of Mariupol where he suggested the city was “almost surrounded.” There, he asserted that fighting units “belonging to the regular military” were “choosing to negotiate” and “lay down their arms and return to their homes.” And only “nationalist elements” were still opposing the Russian advance.
Sticking to the possible delusion of what would happen when the Russians first invaded, he proceeded to talk about how the Russian troops were supposedly being welcomed with open arms:
We have seen, of course, soon over Ukraine, different reactions to this operation. There are certainly civilians who have been happy to see Russian forces, but there – but there have also been those who have been less than happy to see, again, Russian troops advancing through Ukraine.
“[L]ess than happy,” is one mighty understatement.
(...)