The Kremlin benefits most from the closing of TV Rain - Sarts

RIGA - According to Janis Sarts, director of NATO's Strategic Communication Center of Excellence, the number one beneficiary of the closure of the Russian independent television channel TV Rain (Dozhd) in Latvia is the Kremlin.

On his Twitter account, he expressed the opinion that the situation that has developed with TV Rain is a "successfully implemented reflexive control operation" by Russia.

Meanwhile, in an interview on TV3 this morning, Sarts explained that reflexive control is a method developed by the State Security Committee during the Soviet Union to send a signal, understanding someone's behavior habits, so that the receiver of the signal acts in a predictable way that is beneficial to the sender of the signal. It can be used, for example, to line up several people against each other.

In Sarts' opinion, a security agent could have infiltrated the TV Rain team, which deliberately created chaos, and the State Security Service has previously pointed out to such risks.

Sarts explained that now the supporters of the Kremlin have been given the opportunity to spread the message that media cannot be free in the West either, because they are suppressed.

At the same time, the director of NATO's Strategic Communication Center of Excellence reminded that the fact that people are in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin does not immediately make them Western-minded.