Unhappy with HBO’s ‘Chernobyl,’ Russia is planning its own series — blaming the CIA

6/7/19
HBO’s recent miniseries “Chernobyl” has become another hit for the premium network, pulling in critical praise and triggering a global conversation about the dramatic 1986 nuclear disaster at a Soviet Union reactor in a region now recognized as Ukraine. The binge-worthy five-episode series recently jumped to the top of IMDb’s all-time rankings of television shows with a 9.7 average score out of 10, nudging aside longtime favorites like “Breaking Bad,” “Planet Earth” and “The Wire,” Variety reported on Wednesday. Despite the glowing international reception, there’s one place the series has not gone over well: Russia, specifically in the power corridors of the Kremlin. As the Hollywood Reporter reported Thursday, a Russian company is in post-production on a series on Chernobyl — one that implicates the United States as playing a role in the disaster. The Russian series has reportedly been commissioned by NTV, a network owned by the media division of Russian natural gas company Gazprom and known for pro-Kremlin spin, according to THR. The government’s cultural ministry has also reportedly kicked in 30 million rubles ($460,000) for the production, whose plot would reportedly run counter to established history.

Writing this week in the Moscow Times, columnist Ilya Shepelin noted a number of pro-Kremlin media figures have used their columns or state television programs to chip away at the HBO production’s credibility or to gripe about its portrayal of Russian leaders. "If Anglo-Saxons film something about Russians,” Anatoly Vasserman, an “ultra pro-Soviet columnist,” according to Shepelin, wrote in response, “it definitely will not correspond to the truth.” The Russian series apparently is part of this patriotic pushback. According to the Times, the production will be anchored in the premise that a CIA operative was at Chernobyl conducting sabotage. The series follows a group of KGB officials working to track down the infiltrator. Shepelin, the columnist, points out the gripes in Russia over the HBO blockbuster have less to do with accuracy than national pride. “The fact that an American, not a Russian, TV channel tells us about our own heroes is a source of shame that the pro-Kremlin media apparently cannot live down,” he wrote this week. “And this is the real reason they find fault with HBO’s 'Chernobyl’ series.”

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Rogue Valley said:

Unhappy with HBO’s ‘Chernobyl,’ Russia is planning its own series — blaming the CIA

The plot runs counter to established history.





Embarrassed by the success of HBO and Moscow's less than stellar decisions made during the Chornobyl disaster, the Kremlin's disinformation machine kicks in.

Note: Russia's state-owned energy corporation Gazprom is managed by Viktor Zubkov (served as the 36th Prime Minister of Russia from September 2007 to May 2008) and Alexey Miller (in 2000 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation). Both are close Vladimir Putin cronies and members of the siloviki clique that rules Russia.

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TrueScotsman said:

They're trying to show us how different they are from the past.

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Rogue Valley said:

Kremlin disinformation is still conspiratorial, no matter if it is 1984 or 2019.

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Jetboogieman said:

I think the Russian series will be very popular with someone at the White House.

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Jetboogieman said:

I think the Russian series will be very popular with someone at the White House.

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gunner said:

Surely we're going to have a Russian bot, frequenting the site, spin the "official line" :lol:

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