If on Russian television there is little talk about the withdrawal of Vladimir Putin’s troops from Kherson, which became a “historic day”, as Volodymyr Zelenskyi estimated, propagandists strongly comment on the information in Telegram channels, and Russian bloggers condemn the decision. , notes Medusa.

Several Russian TV channels “Pervyi Kanal”, “Rossiya 1” and NTV showed in their news broadcasts on Wednesday evening the official ten-minute video of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, in which General Serhii Surovikin reports to Minister Sergei Shoigu about the need to “regroup forces and occupy the defense on the left bank of the Dnieper”. .

The First channel and “Russia 1” also broadcast reports on how residents of the Kherson region, who left there after calls from the authorities imposed from Moscow, received certificates for apartments in the Stavropol Territory.

After that, the news broadcasts of all three channels stopped covering the situation in Kherson for a day and a half.

On Friday, after the Russian Defense Ministry announced the completion of the troop withdrawal, NTV news reported that Russian air defenses repelled Ukrainian strikes as Russian troops moved to the left bank and that more than 115,000 civilians had been evacuated.

NTV also reported that “information began to arrive yesterday evening about the blowing up of two bridges near Kherson”, but the presenter did not speculate on who could have done it, noting only that the Russian Ministry of Defense does not comment on any situation. .

Channel One did not mention the withdrawal from the Kherson region in its news broadcasts on Friday. Rossiya 1 also did not say anything about the completion of the “withdrawal”, but showed a report on how Russian regions “continue to accept refugees”.

Agitation on “patriotic” channels

On the other hand, the withdrawal from Kherson was widely discussed in the Telegram channels of Russian journalists loyal to the Kremlin.

Many of them noted in their posts that the decision to leave the city was correct and saved the lives of a large number of fighters, and also noted that miscalculations of the previous command led to such a decision.

“I know for sure that this decision was not easy for anyone. Neither for those who took, nor for us, who understood that this would happen and prayed that it would not happen. Because the only alternative is to plant the group in an empty steppe, fill it with mobs and open the way to Crimea,” wrote the head of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan.

“You can turn a city into a great fortress, but have difficulties with logistics. It can even be protected. However, there are serious losses among the civilian population and personnel, including those mobilized. As you can see, it was a choice between two bad options. They chose a less bloody one,” claims well-known pro-Kremlin journalist Andriy Medvedev.

“The evacuation of Russian citizens took place, the state apparatus was withdrawn – a very difficult logistical and technical task was solved at a good level by the headquarters of the Main Committee of the Air Force. Victory is created not only by popular and simple solutions, but also by stepping on the neck of pride. Common sense should be present in all decisions, even unpleasant ones,” military correspondent Semen Pegov wrote on his WarGonzo channel.

“The decision on Kherson has been made. “How” and “why” it happened is worth finding out, but it should be done by competent people. I advise hysterics not to make the situation worse. Especially for those who live far away and have only seen the trenches on TV <...> I consider it the right decision not to kill the boys who remained in Kherson,” wrote Andrii Rudenko, host of Russian state television.

Bloggers sharply commented on the recall

At the same time, many pro-government bloggers expressed their own detailed assessment of the situation, complaining that in the eyes of the population the surrender of Kherson would be a “defeat”, and some openly criticized the actions of the Russian army and even called the withdrawal “treason”.

“Militarily, this is Russia’s worst purely military defeat since 1991,” says the Colonelcassad Telegram channel, which has 814,000 subscribers.

“The reasons lie in political and military impotence, born of the belief in one’s own exclusivity, infallibility and invulnerability,” writes the Rybar Telegram channel, which has 1.1 million subscribers.

“For at least the next two days, we will have to read, listen and watch how the betrayal around Kherson will be justified and flattened by the statement that nothing could be done. You could But not in the last days and no later than June. But nothing was done,” criticized the Telegram channel “Grey Zone”, which has 350,000 subscribers.

At the same time, pro-Kremlin journalists, who analyzed the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, drew attention to the fact that public expression of any point of view on this topic can be a reason for criminal prosecution, since criticism of the withdrawal of troops can be considered as “discrediting” the army, and support as “a call to change the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation”.

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