Meet The Assad's Propagandist Who Was Rewarded By Carrying The Olympic Flag

Her name is Anastasia Popova. She is a Russian journalist working for the Russian state-funded propaganda-TV RT (Russia Today).

The VIA (Very Important Anastasia)

To understand how very important Anastasia Popova is to President Putin of Russia, one should note that Russia has the population of 144 million, of which 77.3 million are female. and of those 77 million Mr. Putin had to sellect 4 to be honoured by carrying the Olympic flag...

So who did he choose?

Lidiya Skoblikova, a Russian winter-Olympic legend with 6 Olympic gold medals and a record number to her name.

Valentina Tereshkova, The first woman in Space, and the only woman to have ever travelled to space by her own.

Chulpan Khamatova,a Russian film, theater and TV actress, who has 21 awards to her name.

And, Anastasia Popova, a Russian journalist who does not even have a Wikipedia entry, and of whom a google-search would yield an arguably more interesting "Crochet Instructor" Anastasia Popova.

So who is she, what did she achieve?

well, the foreignpolicy website boiled it down to one sentence: "[Anastasia Popova] made her name cheer-leading for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime."

A witness who saw f*** all

Popova was sent to Syria by the Russian TV to provide an "alternative" coverage to that reported by the international media about the uprising of 2011, and alternative coverage is, exactly, what she managed to provide!

while the likes of BBC, CNN, Aljazeera, France 24, and countless other main stream news channels as well as online social-media feeds were all busy covering the mass anti-regime demonstrations in the streets of Daraa, Banyas, Homs, Hama, Idleb, and many other cities in Syria, Ms. Popova and her Russian team were on a different planet-Syria.

Ms. Popova recalls in an interview with pressenza.com "Despite all our attempts we didn’t manage to find the thousands-strong demonstrations against the government so often talked about by the Western media".

"when we would get calls from our channel asking us about so-and-so square where an anti-government demonstration was being shot at by tanks or artillery. We would get to that square and there was literally nothing — a few pedestrians and a policeman directing traffic."

Trust worthy reporting

Ms. Popova, backed by the Russian mission to the UN, went to Geneva, and offered "information" to the International Commission of Inquiry for Syria (Chaired by Mr.Paulo Pinheiro).

Popova, later, told the audience at a presentation held by the Russian mission to the UN in april 2013, that her information was REJECTED by the UN inquiry who apparently interviewed refugees who'd left Syria, and didn't trust Popova's interviews.

A chemical reporter

in March 2013 Ms. Popova stood on the ground with an industrial face mask reporting on an alleged chemical attack (different to the one reported widely in August 2013) in the northern Syrian village of khan al-assal, that happened a whole week earlier.

in her 3 minutes report she claim to have gathered compiling evidence that the attack was led by the opposition.

In April 2013 she was asked during her UN presentation as to how she came to the conclusion that the opposition led the alleged chemical attack, she said "witnesses" and "I was there".

Finally, I can not resist but quoting and seconding foreignpolicy's David Kenner advice to the russian president,

"Honoring Popova by allowing her to carry the Olympic flag is a striking statement about where Russia stands on Syria. But given some of the dismal coverage of Sochi so far, perhaps Putin would have been better served by letting her report on the Olympics."