The protests running across the United States after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who lost his life in police custody after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly ten minutes, has turned the world's eyes on President Trump's administrative response.
Russia has recently joined in on criticizing the American president of its countermeasures against the demonstrations. The move has served as a distraction to the Russian government's own history, as reported by The New York Times.
Sparking international criticism
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his thoughts on police brutality amid the protests as "horrifying." The American government has considered Putin as a violent savage who is responsible for several misdeeds in the past.
"A real tragedy, an American tragedy," said Russia's foreign ministry and had demanded the American government to take better care of its people by protecting their rights and not continually looking for faults within the Russian governance.
The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday that the methods that police officers use in preventing looting and other illegal actions should not come with the sacrifice for human rights of the protesters.
Zakharova said earlier on a TV talk show that the events that can be seen in the United States deny the American nation of the right to question other governments of their actions for several years.
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Vladimir Solovyov, the host of the tv show, said that Russia should commemorate George Floyd's death by accusing American politicians of violating the rights of their citizens, similar to what the American government did with Russia regarding the 2009 death of Sergei L. Magnitsky in a Moscow prison. Magnitsky was a tax lawyer for William F. Browder, an American-born financier.
An expert on the relationship between Russia and the United States, Ivan Kurilla, said that the Kremlin-lead nation is revelling in the unrest that the US is experiencing.
A historical backlash
The comments of the Russian government comes with similar criticism that China and Iran have shared. These nations are taking advantage of the situation throughout media networks as well as social media to boost their narratives further more than stoking American racism, as reported by NBC News.
Although their goals might be different, all three countries utilized their expansive online presence to express their criticisms of America's response to the death of Floyd, police officers' method of controlling the protesters, as well as President Trump.
The state media of Russia focused on the facts on the streets in comparison to how former US president Barack Obama and Human Rights NGO Human Rights Watch criticized the Kremlin with their grievances and protests.
"America 2020: Where anti-racists are terrorists and racists are president," wrote one graphic in the Sputnik newspaper.
One report revealed that Russian covert information operations have focused on African-American grievances which include a situation from 2016 where the Internet Research Agency targetted the Black Lives Matter demonstration.
Graphika recently said, however, that there is no evidence to suggest that there has been any covert Russian interference with the protests. It also noted that baseless claims should not be made or expressed unless there is evidence that supports it as it could be used to steer away from genuine activists calling for justice.
