Prague, Aug 26 (CTK) – Russian media use political stances of Czech President Milos Zeman in support of the Kremlin’s aggressive and expansive policy, according to a study worked out by the Semantic Visions firm that the European Values think tank presented in Prague today.
Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek told CTK that on the contrary, organisations like European Values were suspected of being the Kremlin agents.
The analysis shows that Zeman gets a dramatically bigger space in Russian media than Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka and he is described as a representative of the Czech Republic’s position.
Sobotka’s views have little significance in the news on the Ukrainian crisis, the United States and NATO, the study says.
“Russian citizens who receive a crushing majority of information from Russian media are untruly informed about stances of the Czech state,” Frantisek Vrabel, from Semantic Visions, told CTK.
Last April, Russian media paid a high attention to Zeman’s statement that the door to Prague Castle, seat of Czech heads of state, was closed to U.S. Ambassador to Prague Andrew Schapiro.
“For the Russian space, Zeman thereby confirmed his role of a fighter against the USA,” the study writes.
Zeman reacted to Schapiro’s words on the public broadcaster Czech Television (CT) that it would be awkward if Zeman attended the Victory ceremony in Moscow on May 9 as the only statesman from an EU country.
Zeman’s statement that a referendum on the departure from the EU a NATO should be held in the Czech Republic had a similar effect in Russia.
Ovcacek said there was a a serious suspicion of the organisations like the European Values being efficient agents of the Kremlin.
“Their activities are immensely harming both the EU and NATO. The mentioned analysis is of this kind,” Ovcacek added.
According to the study, the Czech Republic is most frequently mentioned in Russian media in connection with ice hockey and football, followed by travelling, mainly in realtion to spas. The main political issues are the EU, NATO, migration, terrorism, international sanctions, crisis in Ukraine and Islamic State, the analysis says.
It focused on the past 2.5 years, processing 68 million pieces of news in Russian media from 24,000 sources.
