Bring it on

The Lady vs The Bitch
On March 1st, Russia's President Putin delivered his annual address to the Federal Assembly. In what was a 2 hour long presentation, inclusive of internal matters and economic issues, the US media picked up on a segment in which he unveiled a number of new Russian technologies in the nuclear sphere. He made it precisely clear, that the weapons were developed in response to the US unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty 1972, which allowed it to place their "missile defense" systems in Europe, and new systems are due to be placed in Asia - thereby completely surrounding Russia from all sides.

Shortly after, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert refused to discuss questions with Russian journalists present at the US State Department media briefing. In response, Russia's equivalent, Maria Zakharova, promised to segregate US journalists in Russia into "special seats", accusing the US State Department of a racist and outdated mentality.



Comment: The Russian Foreign Ministry will allocate special seats for American journalists at press briefings, if the United States dares once again to infringe upon the rights of Russian reporters, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
"This behavior is unacceptable! If the State Department once again dares to label our journalists who are present at press briefings 'journalists from Russia' and stop communicating with them because of that, we will carry out what we promised," Zakharova said. "We will arrange special seats for the so-called journalists from the US at the Foreign Ministry's press center so that your journalists could feel this time what it is all about."

"Earlier, literally several decades ago, people with different skin color were not allowed to ride on the same bus in the United States. It is necessary to overcome that instead of returning to the flawed practice of the early 19th century, dividing journalists into countries and nationalities. You have no right to deny them access to information due to their nationality," Zakharova stressed. She also thanked "those American reporters who defended their Russian counterparts' right to access information and be treated equally."



Furthermore, the US media and State Department entirely distorted the message of President Putin's address - presenting is as a threat to the US, as opposed to a matter of self defense. President Putin voiced the same opinion to NBC's Megyn Kelly - "this commentary is not done by analysts, but by propagandists" he said.
Inessa Sinchougova is an Editor and Journalist at Fort Russ News, as well as a research fellow and translator of the Belgrade based think-tank, the Center for Syncretic Studies. She was educated at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), in the field of Political Science and was previously employed in Marketing and Communications Strategy for a Multi-National Corporation. She runs a popular YouTube channel for translations of key Russian Foreign Policy figures and appears regularly on other alternative media channels. If you like her work, you can support her Patreon here.