"Since 4:40 a.m. there has been a return fire": This has been the leitmotif of RT France's reporting from early in the morning.

Putin's voice in France has more spectacular pictures than the French broadcasters, they are always marked "unauthorized video".

On the Internet, a red banner proclaims: "Zelenskyi has ordered the greatest possible casualties to be inflicted on the Russian army."

Juerg Altwegg

Freelance writer in the feuilleton.

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The "operation of the Russian army" is described as a defensive war.

Tanks can be seen.

Congested roads in only one direction are faded in and explosions filmed from a great distance.

The sirens are wailing in Kiev.

Perfect French-speaking reporters are connected from Rostov-on-Don and Donetsk.

One reports on "Russian maneuvers" in the Donbass: authorities and volunteers took care of the refugees.

A reporter with a helmet on his head describes how he has just escaped a great danger: the bombing of the Russian separatists, whose safety Putin has to guarantee.

sign of weakness

Efforts to appear balanced or even objective are limited to mentioning the reactions of Western politicians.

The appeal by UN Secretary-General António Guterres ("In the name of humanity") is derided as a sign of weakness.

An RT reporter is also standing in front of the Elysée, where Macron convened his war council.

At eleven o'clock the broadcaster reports that five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed so far.

On the homepage, the headline about Zelenskyy's order to the army is replaced by the message that Kiev has severed diplomatic relations with Moscow.

RT France also pays attention to the Ukrainian plane that was intercepted in Romania.

The pilot surrendered.

Around noon, the summary of "operations" against military targets, where the civilian population has nothing to fear, tops the list of the most popular videos.

This is followed by the sequence in which Donald Trump praises Putin.

Throughout the day, the most unspeakable Putin understanders and French friends of Russia parade in the studio.

Lawyer Jean-Claude Beaujour underlines the humiliations inflicted on Putin.

The Ukrainians are puppets of NATO and America, but the Europeans paid the price for the war: "The Americans are organizing the economy and the chaos in Europe."

Inspired by resilience

Bruno Guigue, a graduate of the elite ENA school and longtime top official, also blames the United States for the invasion: "US propaganda invented an 'imaginary war' that played the role of a self-fulfilling prophecy." You can say that for days explain the continuing "scaremongering" of the USA: "They had the plans in advance." The experts agree: Europe will suffer more from the sanctions than Russia.

It can be self-sufficient and has all the raw materials it needs – gas and oil anyway.

And above all: Its population is inspired by a resilience that the West has lost.

Political scientist Emmanuel Leroy founded an aid organization for children in Donbass in 2015 and launched the “Stop Russophobia” campaign in 2016.

Since the turn of the millennium he has been fighting for the "liberation of holy Russia from the clutches of the Anglo-Saxon ideology of the market".

This liberation is as important as the victory in World War II – with which Leroy also compares the new war.

Heroic Russia can only win him, he says.

“The Ukrainian army is demoralized.

Many soldiers speak Russian and long for defeat.

There are many deserters.

That's why a Nazi regiment was formed behind the front, which has to stop them." For Leroy, the conquest of Ukraine is about "Russian reunification": "It's part of the logic of history."

RT broadcasts Emmanuel Macron's short speech live.

Even the moderator is temporarily speechless.

The first commenter notices that Macron had put up the flags of Ukraine in addition to the French and European flags.

His second comment: That was an election campaign speech.

There is ridicule for the withdrawal of the French from Mali.

Then it switches back to the reporter with the bike helmet in Donetsk.

He escaped another dangerous situation.

Bombs, he explains, are being used by both sides.

Women with prams can be seen in the background.