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On August 2, Russia celebrates Airborne Forces Day. The symbols of the holiday are the bluish-green flag of these troops and the song “The Waving Blue”. But among public this holiday is most often associated with the paratroopers swimming in the fountains, the custom of crushing watermelons, and the inevitable brawls and violence. The latter could not be avoided this year as well. Moreover, one of the incidents occurred during the live broadcast of one of the Russian federal TV channels.
“Emergency Accident” on NTV
Before the Russian TV host Nikita Razvozhayev could manage to talk about the celebrations of Russia’s “elite” airborne troops on the special occasion, a man appeared during live broadcast shouting expletives and threatening to seize Ukraine (watch the video from 7:40).
In response to the journalist’s request to remain silent, the man punched the latter in the face, after which NTV stopped live broadcast from Gorki Square. The TV channel reported that the man was taken to the police station after the interruption of the live broadcast. Minutes after the incident, the video began to spread on the Internet as well.
“No One except Us”
Almost all Russian media outlets addressed the incident. Many of them clearly heard the man’s threats to seize Ukraine. The slogan of the Russian Airborne Forces Day is “No one except us”. Maybe Russia Today used the same logic and decided to hear what others did not. In the reportage prepared by Russia Today, the operator who worked on the site says that the drunk man shouted expletives against Russia.
But one can clearly hear in the video (especially in the uncensored version) that the news story of Russia Today is a lie.
Man Shouting “Expletives against Russia” is a Patriot from Moscow
Later it was revealed that the man who attacked the journalist is the 32-year old Aleksandr Orlov, a resident of Moscow. According to the official press release of Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, the man does not have anything to do with the Airborne Forces.
It is also known that the man is registered in “VKontakte” Russian social network as “Kolobok Yaroslkavkin”. One can find Russian nationalist and anti-Ukrainian posts on his page, as well as videos shared from Russia Today TV channel, which presented the incident not as it occurred but as was convenient for the Russian propaganda machine.
