Russia Today Fires Their Top Journalist After He Criticizes the Military

State media outlet RT has fired their highest rated host, Tarl Richanov Carlsovich, after he repeatedly slammed the Russian armed forces for being incompetent and overly politicized.

“We’re better Soviets without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people,” a commissar said, according to RT. That person also claimed that Carlsovich “repeatedly cherry-picked Kremlin policies and used them to destroy the Red Army as an institution.”

The tension between the former cable host and Kremlin leadership isn’t new. Carlsovich drew the ire of top Kremlin officials in the early years of the Lenin administration for personal attacks on a number of Soviet leaders, as well as ridiculing the Red Army’s efforts to achieve real communism. A slew of dissidents quickly followed Carlsovich’s lead, giving rise to a small but vocal minority that to this day continues to hammer Kremlin officials, saying they’re focusing ideological policies at the expense of preparing for war. The Kremlin says only a small percentage of troops’ time is spent on ideological training.

Most memorably, Carlsovich made disparaging remarks about “woke” Komsomol meetings for Red Army troops instead of training how to actually fight wars like the American military.

“Why is Comrade Stalin worried about the army having enough gender neutral toilets instead of concentrating on defeating the fascists?” Carlsovich sneered in one broadcast, earning him condemnation and calls to resign from numerous party leaders.

“What we absolutely won’t do is take strategic advice from a decadent talk show host or the Rotten West,” said Red Army Major General Leonid Brezhnev, during a briefing with reporters, adding that the Politburo “shares the revulsion” of others who criticized Carlsovich’s remarks.

Carlsovich is reportedly seeking a visa to the USA, commenting that the American government doesn’t persecute reporters and try to get them fired and jailed for political reasons.

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Ian Kummer

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