KREMLIN media has accused Scotland of signing up to “America’s anti-Russian project”.
In a new broadside, state news outlets controlled and funded from Moscow effectively accused Scottish parliamentary authorities of hypocrisy on freedom speech.
Their attacks came after one Russian news outlet, Sputnik, failed to secure a place at a Holyrood meeting discussing Kremlin propaganda, which is now thought to be turning against independence.
Sputnik, whose UK base is in Edinburgh, last week argued in an English-language story that it had been unable to defend itself against the very premise of the event: that it was part of a state disinformation machine.
However, Kremlin-funded Russian-language media was quick to link Sputnik’s exclusion from the event with “Scotland” toeing a US line on the regime of increasingly authoritarian president Vladimir Putin.
How Ria Novosti covered Scotland's "anti-Russian programma"
RIA Novosti, a news wire agency that is part of the wider Sputnik family, ran copy under the headline “Scotland joins the anti-Russian programme of the United States.”
The agency repeated Sputnik’s complains about being excluded from the Holyrood meeting and then added the views of a Russian commentator, Grigory Trofimchuk.
Mr Trofimchuk, RIA Novosti reported, believed the Holyrood meeting was an example of a suspect being tried in his or her absence. The academic, a regular on Russian media, added: “Literally at the beginning of May the US Congress passed a law to counter Russian influence around the world. The actions of Scotland can be considered part of this new programme and the corresponding political trend.
“A trial not attended by the accused is something of an innovation in Western legislation. And if you do not have an accused you do not even need a crime as such.”
OPINION: The practical dilemma posed by Kremlin media: What is a journalist?
Mr Trofimchuk, whose use of casual generalisations such as “West” and “Scotland” may not have seemed strange to a Russian audience, said his country had been lectured for much off the 20th century on free speech. He added: “Of course we could tell them that they do not observe the right to freedom of speech but that would probably not be productive.”
The meeting on Kremlin propaganda was conducted under Chatham House rules, so international participants could speak freely without being named. The Herald, which attended, has observed those rules.
Andy Wightman, a Green MSP , hosted the event, which was organised by the parliamentary cross-party group on Russia which he chairs. He summed up the proceedings on the record, saying: “One of the speakers argued that ‘Russia does not have an ideology to export. What it exports is trouble’.
“During the independence referendum, Kremlin-funded media outlets promoted stories about a rigged referendum and have taken a close interest in Scottish nationalist politics since.
“I was particularly struck therefore by the view that as the UK embarks on the process of leaving the EU, that ‘trouble’ is best fomented not by supporting secessionist sentiment but by promoting unionist sentiment.
“In short, the departure of the UK [from the EU] is a bigger deal than Scottish independence.”
Former First Minister Alex Salmond on RT
Senior SNP figures have warned their supporters away from Sputnik and other propaganda outlets such as RT, a television station carried on Freeview. All main parties in Scotland are understood to reject, as a matter of routine, requests for interview from the channels. Individual MPs and MSPs continue to appear. Alex Salmond, Jeremy Corbyn and some Tories have featured in recent years.
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