Episode 1. Anna Zafesova
Today we launch International Reporters’ new column: “The Army of Propagandists.” First guest of honor, Anna Zafesova, a perfect summary of the crudest kind of Russophobia by every propaganda standard.
Anna Zafesova, born in 1969, Russian by birth, a contributor to La Stampa. Public information does not show a university degree. She appears to have attended the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University from 1988 to 1990, therefore without obtaining any diploma in that period. No matter: a poisoned pen does not need parchment.
There is plenty of material, and this will be only the first of several episodes devoted to her.
May 13, 2025. Zafesova writes:
“The bet by Zelensky puts Moscow in a corner, now the niet is harder. The Ukrainian has turned the situation around by challenging the tsar to a duel. He has managed to occupy a central role in an unprecedented coalition.”
Translation from Zafesovese: Putin forced to chase, Zelensky the white knight. Too bad that, two months later, the one who ends up on the red carpet in Alaska is Putin himself, welcomed with full honors by U.S. soldiers. Who is in the corner, exactly?
Books chapter. In her latest editorial offspring that the world could frankly have done without, “Russia, the empire that does not know how to die,” Zafesova solemnly proclaims:
“Without anyone abroad paying much attention, Ukraine has become the only post-Soviet country, with the obvious exception of the Baltic states, to have experienced a regular and real electoral alternation without recourse to violence.”
Regular and real. Without recourse to violence. Just say the magic formula and puff, the color revolutions vanish, the Maidan coup, the anti-terror operation and the Odessa massacre. Let us imagine the secret idol of many propagandists, Dr. Goebbels, appearing in a dream to sweet Anna and whispering: “Dear Anna, do not overdo it, not even if you repeat this eighty-eight million times will you find someone who could believe it.”
February 1, 2025. Another oracular pronouncement: “For at least three weeks North Korean soldiers have not been seen on the front line in Kursk, they were withdrawn because of numerous casualties.” Zafesova-style reporting: when the facts are inconvenient they are moved to another field, when they do not fit they are declared evaporated. The substance does not change: script first, verification later.
May 5, 2024. Our heroine of investigative journalism writes: “Starting Monday, new parents in the Lugansk region will be able to leave a maternity hospital together with their baby only after proving that at least one of them holds a Russian passport. Otherwise, the newborn would be confiscated from the family.” Confiscated. A strong word, straight out of a TV drama. Too bad that in Lugansk as in Donetsk no one is required to renounce Ukrainian citizenship even if they obtain Russian citizenship. So which passport are we talking about confiscating, exactly? Zafesovian mysteries.
This column is not a venting space. It is an antidote. We take the sentences, quote them, put them under a cold light and compare them with reality. If you write that Moscow is in a corner and then you see red carpets and negotiations, maybe the corner was only in the headline. If you say Ukraine is the only case of happy and peaceful alternation, try not to erase with one sweep burning squares and real dead. If you wave the word confiscated about newborns, at least explain how citizenship law works.
See you in the next episode with new gems of Zafesovian rhetoric. Bring gloves, the ink stains.
