After a meeting between Odesa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Russian media distorted a Saakashvili post on Facebook.
The original post described the U.S.’s willingness to provide funding for the administration, and not specifically for Saakashvili himself: “Also within the framework of Odesa’s anti-corruption pressure, the U.S. government agreed to provide funds for the salaries of the new Saakashvili’s team.” Later, he elaborated on his official Facebook page: “The U.S. government agreed to finance initial projects for the registration service and other reformatory initiatives.”
But that is not how Russian media covered it. Russkaya Vesna, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Glagol, NeFakt and others reported that “the USA will pay salary to Saakashvili.”
Komsomolskaya Pravda, for example, sarcastically misrepresented Saakashvili’s words in the following manner: “Mishiko happily informed on his Facebook page that during his meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, the Ambassador had promised that he would provide American rations for the Governor’s team. And the salaries to Saakashvili, as well as to his staff, would be paid from the budget of the USA.”
