Pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets have intensified a campaign on the climate issue, suggesting “alternative versions” and conspiracies around, and has lately also stepped up on their efforts, attacking Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager than initiated a school strike against climate change. Ms. Thunberg is viciously being attacked by state controlled media. The Russian Government Offices’ official newspaper, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, relayed an unfounded claim on “Swedish Social services suspecting Greta Thunberg’s parents for abuse“.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta lashes out against Ms. Thunberg, ignoring anything she says. In one moderately-sized article, its author manages to bring up her lack of education nine times:
- This “PR-girl” from Sweden, who quit school…
- Her simple, middle-school level slogans…
- An illiterate, fanatic Messiah…
- Nobody wants to listen to an ill-informed girl…
- The “guru” herself has no insights whatsoever in any scientific achievements
- This middle-school drop-out has also been invited to talk in Davos and the European Parliament…
- When she propagates for the uselessness of school education…
- Her own problems with a lack of education are not hurting her…
- Greta herself is happy with the opportunity to skip school
Not once in the entire article are any of her suggestions or demands met with any kind of counter argument. The grown-ups at the Russian Government Offices’ official newspaper prefer to attack the child.
“Cosmopolitan Elites”
Kremlin-controlled media are almost trying to compete in bashing Greta and her followers, adding anti-Semitic trigger words like “cosmopolitan global elites”, “The Rothschilds”, “Soros”… Greta is a puppet, pulled by puppet masters.
Life.ru, 24 September: A Bomb Called Greta: How the Swedes Turned an Autistic Girl into a Weapon.
Thunberg will, to begin with, set up some movement of her own to protect the rights of animals/humans/martians, and publish a list of “approved” countries. These countries will likely be in Europe or far away on the other side of the ocean. Countries, not on her list will become targets for the environmentalists. What countries will end up suffering “ecological sanctions” is easy to see.
REN TV, 27 September: Poor Greta, Soros Spin-Doctors Will Drive Mentally Ill Greta Thunberg Mad, Using Her as a Symbol for Globalism
Control over the climate is a topic that allows the cosmopolitan global elites meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, forcing them to initiate a de-industrialisation process and political reforms in order to establish “international control over the ecological situation”. So of course it is explainable how Greta could raise to the highest tribune of the world for forwarding such ideas. The finance oligarchs of the West, closely tied to the Democratic party of the United States, have, with the help of the pseudo-ecological agitators they created, managed to whip into the masses an unfounded theory about world industry producing too much CO2 and therefore must be cut down radically
REN TV, 30 September: The Puppet Masters are Madder than the Puppets
So why is Greta and her visions displayed heroically on TV? Why is she received on the highest level? Don’t forget: As Greta thinks that airplanes pollutes the environment, she was given a ride on a yacht, built on the orders of Benjamin de Rothschild – the head of the French branch of the Rothschild family; the former employer of the current president of France. Soros gives money to her fond. Horror stories about the end of the world drives voters to support the Greens. So the answer to the question why is the same as always: money and power.
“Put Her Out of Her Misery”
The Russian state-funded translation service Inosmi.ru, translating and re-publishing content from international media, has published (as per 30 September 2019) 16 translations into Russian, devoted to Ms. Thunberg. Most of those are strongly negative and focusing on Thunberg’s age, her condition etc. The articles are spiced up with strongly aggressive comments: some suggesting euthanasia. Below a selection of comments to an article on the need to give psychiatric help to Greta Thunberg:
“How to help Greta? Put her out of her misery!”
“Haldol and a dildo of polished birch-wood log. Either used as supposed to, or hitting her on the head with it.”
“Only whipping with a belt could help Greta!!!! But I’m afraid it’s too late. Only the asylum would help now.”
It is important to remember that this is not anything from a murky fringe publication in the undergrowth of the Internet. This are comments, published at a moderated, state-sponsored website. Commenting on a teen-age activist.
Not all Russian media sings along with the Greta-bashing chorus. Business website RBC describes the Russian society as entirely unable to stomach a child – or generally anyone – who acts not according to the stereotypes:
Greta is, of course, not the first child to address global problems with adults; be that the arms race, ecology or the climate crisis. But at earlier occasions children have turned to the adults with naïve questions: “why is it so?”, “Let’s not do it like that!”. Traditional gender roles have been at play: cute girls have come to adult men and asked them for help and protection. Boys haven’t been doing nonsense like this. Greta is not cute and is not asking any one: she demands.
A child that comes forward and demands something serious, without being cute and loveable, not playfully acting with grown-ups or smiling to the audience… this provokes an aggressive reaction. A 16 year old cannot possibly have her own opinion on one of the most pressing issues of our time; she cannot understand anything and most definitely cannot have the right to put demands before adults. When she does, she must per definition be a puppet in somebody’s hands. Nothing else is possible.
Russia officially acknowledges the issues with climate change. 23 September, the Russian government signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The pro-Kremlin media’s reporting on Greta Thunberg and the climate issue actually contradicts Kremlin policy on the subject matter. But in the quest for an audience, anything goes.
British NGO DeSmog UK has mapped an anti-Greta-campaign, deeply rooted in oil-industry, anti-migration sentiment, conspiracy theories and Brexit-proponents. RT/Sputnik fits well into this context. In an earlier article, Eu vs Disinfo demonstrated several cases where RT and other English language pro-Kremlin media systematically defame Ms. Thunberg. Questioning the climate change and environmentalists is not the main objective; creating rapport to a potential audience is.
What Do Children Know about Imperial Fashion?
But maybe the campaign against Greta Thunberg is coming to an end? Russian parliamentarian Vasily Vlasov, representing the party of populist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has invited Ms. Thunberg to speak before the State Duma, the Russian Parliament. Vlasov is one of the youngest parliamentarians in Russia and is quoted saying:
We, who belong to the younger generation must not remain silent when it comes to our future, and we will not accept to be facing extinction.
But then again, maybe not. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed that he was not impressed by Ms. Thunberg’s speech before the United Nation’s General Assembly:
I may disappoint you but I don’t share the common excitement about the speech by Greta Thunberg. No one has explained to Greta that the modern world is complex and different and … people in Africa or in many Asian countries want to live at the same wealth level as in Sweden.
In Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, an Emperor, obsessed with neat clothes, employs two con-men, to manufacture an outfit made of a fabric, so fine and delicate that it is invisible for anyone unfit for their job or hopelessly stupid. Eventually, the Emperor wants to display his new attire to his people. As no one, including the Emperor himself, wants to admit to being hopelessly stupid, everyone expresses their appreciation for the Emperor’s new clothes, until a small child cries out that the Emperor is naked.
Following the logic of the pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets; What does a child possibly know of textile industry or current fashion standards? Why should we believe in what an uneducated child says? And how come parents can allow children to shout at Emperors like that? And, yes, the child’s affiliations to anti-Imperial, Globalist circles have not been sufficiently investigated.
