One of the minor outcomes of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s March for Justice on Moscow was that, after he was banished to Belarus, his media empire was shut down. Now there are reports that former employees, who are no longer covered by NDAs, are speaking up about how the propaganda was actually made.

In the aftermath of Prigozhin’s media empire collapse, former employees spoke out about the dark tactics employed, including hiring individuals to portray “victims of Ukrainian Armed Forces” in staged reports that underpinned Russia’s fake pretext for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — its Big Lie about alleged “genocide in Donbas.”…

Notably, one RIA FAN journalist who worked with military coverage from Donbas told that the source files of the interview often contained off-screen instructions for the heroes of the reports, who were hired people coached by an off-camera operator who offered advice on how to say their pre-memorized lines more realistically (and with more propaganda effect):

“Most of the people who were portrayed in such stories as ‘victims’ of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stand-ins, hired individuals. These characters repeated pre-memorized lines to themselves, trying to ‘squeeze out a tear.’ They were also instructed off-camera by the operator to speak ‘slower’ or to ‘repeat this moment again’,” told the former employee of RIA FAN.

There are apparently a long string of fake reports which were later debunked, designed to anger the populace back home. One infamous story claimed that Ukrainian nationalists had crucified a 3-year-old. This was claimed by an alleged witness who was interviewed back in 2014.

Pretending to be an eye-witness, she described a heart-breaking story about a three-year-old child being crucified by Ukrainian nationalists in front of his mother’s eyes in the city of Slovyansk. The unconscious mother was then tied to a tank and driven around the square.

The story was one of the peaks of the Kremlin-orchestred campaign targeted at inciting hatred against Ukrainians. Journalists from Novaya Gazeta debunked the story within 24 hours, and other testimonies disproving the Channel One’s lie appeared, among them one from Ukrainian Stopfake.

In addition to manufacturing propaganda, Prigozhin’s media outlets were also very paranoid about being infiltrated by members of Navalny’s organization. Many employees had to pass extensive polygraph tests designed to ensure they had no ulterior motive.

Former “Patriot” employees revealed the security checks and the workplace atmosphere to Bumaga anonymously. According to a former employee, each media was allocated a floor, and smaller editorials sat together.

“They did not check me on a polygraph, but I heard stories from newcomers. They were taken to a room where security service specialists worked with them and asked questions,” said the source.

These questions, asked during a “lie detector” test, intended to weed out any drug addicts or Russian opposition sympathizers, especially fans of Alexei Navalny, another source told Bumaga.

The original report is here and it’s in Russian. Now that Prigozhin’s empire has been shut down for good, Russia will have to get by with the regular nightly propaganda on television. Here’s a recent installment translated by Julia Davis where they discuss the recent strike on the bridge to Crimea. If you watch through this you’ll see one guy is outraged that Zelensky had the nerve to ruin the vacation of the many Russians who were planning to use the bridge. These folks might be a bit out of touch with reality. But I guess that’s the point of propaganda.