Devastating news this week for press freedom with the shocking announcement that RIA Novosti, one of the most reputable and reliable state-approved news agencies, will be shut down and replaced with a new state-friendly organ, Rossia Segodnya (Russia Today).  Even worse, the new enterprise is to be headed by Dmitry Kiselyov (or Kiselev), an openly homophobic and chauvinistic propagandist with long-term affiliations with the Kremlin, who openly supports its more right-wing policies.

Kiselyov was in the spotlight this week not just for the news of his appointment, but because of his propagandist shenanigans in relation to the anti-government protests in Ukraine.  It’s no secret that the Kremlin is mobilising to quash any possibility of anti-state sentiment bleeding over into the Russian psyche, but even so, Kiselyov really laid it on thick this week.  So much so that a protester in Kiev stormed his live broadcast earlier this week, offering him an Oscar for his ‘lies and nonsense’ (including his insistence that protesters in Kiev had provoked the police into poisoning them with tear gas).

The Economist discusses this week’s media scandal, and traces Kiselyov’s stance back to his days working at a pro-Ukrainian government channel during the Orange Revolution.  Essential reading.

This was not Mr Kiselev’s first Ukrainian crusade.