This is story is important to add context for an important interview I will publish above.
You may have heard of Anton Krasovsky, the Russian propagandist of RT who once called for the killing of Ukrainian children.
Anton Krasovsky was worked for RT before getting fired for coming out as gay on TV in 2013. He made his comments during a discussion about Russia’s anti-gay law and he said:
“I’m gay and I’m as much a human-being as President Putin and Premier Medvedev.” He lamented about the lack of freedom of expression in Russia and in 2013 he even ran for mayor of Moscow. You can also see him here at a gay parade in New York. In 2014 Krasovsky even went to Ukraine to support the Maidan Revolution.
So, how did Anton Krasovsky when from being a liberal to a full blown pro-Putin propagandist? His story is very typical of many Russian dissidents and opposition figures who have been coerced by the Russian government to change their views.
In 2012, Anton Krasovsky was having dinner at a table with Boris Nemstov (murdered in 2015 outside the Kremlin), Ksenia Sobchak (Putin’s god-daughter and supposedly an opposition figure), and Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician who was in a Russian jail, but was freed this month in the US-Russia prison exchange. Basically, this was a meeting between opposition figures.
While having dinner, a waiter approached their table and informed them that they were being filmed by the people sitting at the table next to them. They were actually being filmed by two women propagandists from Life News, a pro-Putin propaganda media network. Upon realising this, Krasovsky stood up approached the table with the propagandists, grabbed their camera and smashed it to the floor. He also scuffled with the women whilst doing so.
Following this incident a criminal case was started against Krasovsky by the Russian police accusing him of assault. As a result, Krasovsky faced multiple years in prison – a horrible nightmare for a gay man in what is an extremely homophobic country.
Krasovsky deeply feared going to prison, so he went to the editor of Life News and begged them to drop the case against him.
Krasovsky’s case was dropped as he accepted a job at KONTR TV, another pro-Putin propaganda channel. Gradually Krasovsky became a Putin propagandist until 2020 he accepted a job as chief editor of the Russian division of RT. There he went full-blown Putinist.
The story of Krasovsky is very typical and similar to many Russian liberals who then became pro-Putin propagandists.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply