Either they have been plowing this field for years (they have) or they recognized that a certain percentage of any population will believe anything (they will) – and spread it for them across the information network. It’s all the above.

Next up: Ukraine blowing up chemical storage tanks in defense.

Putin’s spokeswoman basically threatened commercial air traffic earlier on Twitter.

And I still find it interesting that radio station is owned by a Chinese company.

?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicultural_Broadcasting

NPR in St Petersburg. Not so much. Recall how DJT messed with Radio Free America?

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/951126591/trump-appointee-seeks-lasting-control-over-radio-free-europe-radio-free-asia

one of only five outlets in the United States that air English-language broadcasts of “Radio Sputnik,” produced in Moscow and Washington under the Russian government’s supervision.

Sputnik is the radio and digital arm of Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), the same Kremlin-controlled media agency that directs RT and RT America, the better-known TV and digital media operations founded by Putin’s regime in 2005.

But while American distributors and European governments have banned RT since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, leading to the collapse of RT’s American operations on Thursday, WZHF is still offering Sputnik’s content to Beltway listeners.

With names like “Political Misfits” and “By Any Means Necessary,” its talk shows are as slickly produced as anything on NPR or the giants of conservative talk radio. Some discussions — organ transplantation, recycling and paranormal activity were among last week’s topics — are apolitical. But many Sputnik hosts offer more barbed commentary about America’s perceived flaws: racism, economic inequity and political dysfunction. One consistent thread for years: Skepticism of the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia acted to influence the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump.

Sputnik’s talking heads have tended to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alleging Ukrainian “crimes” against its Russian-speaking population and “encroachment” on Russia from the NATO alliance. They typically describe the invasion as “a military operation” or “an intervention,” echoing Putin’s framing. There’s plenty of whataboutism: A Russian commentator on Friday fretted that the United States could give nuclear weapons to Ukraine. “We cannot be confident that America will be a responsible member of the international community,” he said.

WZHF has been licensed to a New York company, Way Broadcasting, since 2001, according to FCC records. But Way appears to be a largely passive owner. In 2017, it agreed to lease the station’s airtime to a second party, RM Broadcasting of Jupiter, Fla.

RM, in turn, sold all of the station’s airtime to Rossiya Segodnya and Sputnik. RM made a similar deal in 2020 with Alpine Broadcasting to place Sputnik’s programs on Alpine’s three stations in the Kansas City area.

The practice, known as a time-brokerage agreement, has been a financial lifeline for small and financially troubled broadcast outlets since the 1930s. Instead of hiring a sales staff and producing programs, station owners merely lease blocks of airtime to another party, often through a broker, which puts its own programs on the air. The best-known form of such agreements are TV “infomercials.”

Sputnik’s deals have been lucrative for the broadcasters involved. According to federal filings, RM paid Way Broadcasting $1.12 million last year to air Radio Sputnik full time and Alpine Broadcasting about $160,000 to carry Sputnik for six hours a day on its Kansas City stations.

RM’s owner, Arnold Ferolito, defended Sputnik in a recent interview, saying efforts to remove it from the air were an attack on free speech.

“RM Broadcasting stands with Ukraine and victims of oppression and aggression worldwide,” he wrote in an email. “One of the fundamental rights that Ukraine is fighting for is freedom of speech and freedom from censorship, and RM is dedicated to the unfettered exchange of information and ideas.”

He noted that the stations disclose Rossiya Segodnya’s role as the source of the broadcasts throughout the day “so that people may make an informed decision on whether to listen or turn the dial.”

Ferolito said other American station owners wanted to carry the service, too, but Sputnik’s parent organization “did not have the budget” for wider U.S. reach.

And I have gotten hoarse yelling about it.

What could possibly motivate Conservatives to reflexively abandon their own long-held principles and programs just because their political opponents embrace them? I submit this is a purely emotional response, one not based on accepting or rejecting any specific policy, but simply a desire to do the opposite of what the other side is doing–whatever it is. Its a variant of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. It must be traceable to a single, emotional, probably historical and cultural issue buried so deep in the American psyche that even those controlled by it don’t recognize it as a cause and motivation of their action and belief.

What could it be? What is its origin? What is the underlying factor, the shaper and mover of modern Conservative thought and behavior? It must be something that has existed since before the birth of the Republic, but that has only become associated with the political Right since the 1960s. Something that erupted in urgency and importance and desperation a half century later. What is it that the American Left now does or thinks that suddenly the American Right feels compelled to attack and reject. Why have the political poles in American society suddenly reversed? I’m old enough to have seen it happen, all during my lifetime. I know what it is.

Religious fundamentalism? Sexual insecurity? Social conformity? I don’t think so, although all are intimately associated with, and contribute greatly, to this political phenomenon. But they are not the cause. Something else is at the core, the root, the obscured and hidden center of all this hatred. It is like a mental illness, those afflicted with it may not even realize they have it.

Think about it.