Russia to probe Euronews over Putin ‘target practice’ video

MOSCOW: Russia said on Monday it would probe Euronews after the news channel broadcast footage of Ukrainian soldiers using the portrait of President Vladimir Putin, styled as Hitler, for target practice.
Russia’s communications watchdog said it would examine the footage following a request from a ruling party lawmaker who said the video was an insult to the Russian strongman and the entire Russian people “who survived the horrors of World War II.”
The spokesman for the Roskomnadzor communications watchdog, Vadim Ampelonsky, said it was too early to say whether Russian authorities would move to punish the Lyon-based channel.
He added however that the watchdog usually issues a formal reprimand if a media outlet is found guilty of inciting hatred.
Two reprimands within the space of a year give authorities legal grounds to suspend the broadcasting of a channel in the country. “This case would be out of the ordinary for any channel, especially such a respectable channel like Euronews,” Ampelonsky told AFP.
On Friday the multilingual channel showed masked Ukrainian soldiers using a portrait of the mustachioed Putin depicted as Hitler as a target during shooting exercises.
“We are training them for war,” an instructor says in the video. “To survive in war conditions and eliminate the enemy during the occupation or the invasion of Russian troops.”
The United Russia lawmaker who requested the probe, Mikhail Markelov, said the channel should formally apologize for the broadcast. “I request that prosecutors begin an investigation and give an appraisal of the video which harms Russia’s national interests,” Markelov told AFP.
In his letters to the communications watchdog and the general prosecutor’s office, the lawmaker said the video of the firing exercises “incites racial hatred and hatred toward man.”