Russian TV makes fun of Ukrainians getting carbon monoxide poisoning from diesel generators, blames Zelensky

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In yesterday's live broadcast, Russian state-owned television channel Rossiya 24 made fun of Ukrainians who had to buy generators and use them in their homes. The anchors of Vesti with Alexei Kazakov – Kazakov himself and Evgenia Petrukhina – sarcastically explained how residents of Ukraine ostensibly steal generators from each other and then suffocate from exhaust fumes because they install the devices in the basement and “are too stupid to set up an air duct”. They also laughed at videos of a man shaving next to an ATM and a girl drying her hair over a gas cooker. “She’ll have no more hair to dry before long,” Petrukhina giggled.

According to the presenters, the only guilty party is Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. They failed to specify what it is that he was guilty of.

“On the one hand, it is a sorry sight; on the other, it was to be expected because Zelensky's stubbornness has already driven this and many other cities and communities to a full-blown energy crisis. In Odesa, for one, you cannot count on a stable electricity supply for at least another two or three months, which is to say, until the end of the winter. This is the local authorities’ forecast. Meanwhile, the president of ‘Nezalezhna’ complained, in a conversation with Joe Biden, that the infrastructure of thermal stations and cogeneration plants had sustained immense damage, without admitting, of course, that the dire situation was his own fault,” Kazakov said.

Further on, the story focused on black marketeers and generator thieves. Evgenia Petrukhina showed CCTV footage of two men carrying a generator wrapped in a blanket from an entrance hall of an apartment block and a post from the Ukraina.Ru Telegram channel with a photograph of an entrance lobby wall with graffiti: “Bastard, bring my generator back.” The channel Ukraina.Ru was founded by Russian state-owned media outlet Russia Today, run by CEO Dmitry Kiselyov and Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.

“Apparently, Ukraine will have more and more trouble generating media ideas because it takes generating electricity at the very least. And that’s problematic. ... News feeds feature more and more reports about carbon monoxide poisoning. Thus, a girl in the village of Belgorodka misused her generator and had to be hospitalized. These devices are real death generators. ... The government in Kyiv is not convinced, though. Dmytro Kuleba, for one, has declared that all of Ukraine could be left without an electricity supply. Paradoxically, the foreign minister does not believe this will cause Ukrainians to flee the country in droves. Does it mean they won't be allowed to? As for rebuilding the power grid, their prospects are just as grim. Thus, the transmission line has been partly disassembled in Odesa. The cables are sagging. Obviously, they have no plans of using them anytime soon. ... Meanwhile, some Ukrainians steal generators to resell them in the black market – instead of climbing to their neighbor’s balcony to steal a sandwich. But if it goes on like this, what else will they be stealing? Firewood? Generators tend to break down,” Petrukhina remarked.