Two ex-ministers, Nick Hækkerup and Mogens Lykketoft, have both been extremely forthright in criticising an item broadcast on TV in Russia by NTV for which they were interviewed.
The story concerned the Danish fear of Russia and the new radio mast that the Danish military intelligence service FET has just erected on Bornholm, reports Politiken.
Both politicians say that they have been misquoted and accuse NTV of using them in ‘Russian propaganda’.
One-sided propaganda
“The whole item is one big manipulated lie, which is unfortunately typical for today’s one-sided propaganda policy,” said ex-foreign minister Mogens Lykketoft to Radio24syv after hearing a Danish translated version of the item.
As an introduction, the NTV anchor said: “Anti-Russian hysteria has reached such a pitch that the Danish authorities have decided to build a tower to carry out surveillance on Russia.”
The anchor went on to say that the streets of Bornholm are deserted because people are afraid of Russia and that politicians at Christiansborg don’t turn up when a vote is taken on increasing the defence budget.
Off message
“My statements in the Russian-language item don’t chime at all with the message I gave them,” said ex-defence minister Nick Hækkerup.
“I’m left with a feeling of ‘fake news’, deliberate distortion and maybe even completely incorrect translation,” he told Radio24syv
One of the images used was of the TV2 weather station placed on top of the Bornholmertårnet in Dueodde. The Russian TV station claimed it was a surveillance camera on the new radio mast at Østermarie.
