Russian State TV Split Over Russian Pensioner Being Dragged From Bus

An incident in Russia in which a woman was dragged off a bus after she criticized Moscow's war effort in Ukraine has been hotly debated on Russian state television.

A video clip showed the woman, described as a pensioner, criticizing how underequipped forces were fighting in Ukraine because "everything is stolen," meaning troops were forced to fight in rubber boots and sit on rickety stools in tanks.

There have been many complaints on Russian social media of poorly equipped troops, especially those who had been drafted as part of Vladimir Putin's partial mobilization.

"This is our empire," she said sarcastically on the bus journey in the Moscow suburb of Dolgoprudny, "an empire propped up on stools."

Discussing a clip of the incident, state television channel NTV noted how no one on board tried to stop a man from picking up the woman and ejecting her from the bus after he was "overcome with patriotic anger." The segment reported how there was a social media backlash within Russia against the man's actions.

Anchor of the Mesto Vstrechi (Meeting Place) show, Andrey Norkin, said that he felt uneasy about the incident while political commentator Alexei Timofeev said it was a "horrendous" story which showed "there are problems within our society."

However, the man had the qualified backing of one guest, Russian MP Nina Ostanina, who admitted it was "terrible" before adding that "I understand his mental state" and that "this is how he expresses his emotion."

After fellow panelists disapproved of her view and co-anchor of the program, Ivan Trushkin, said "that's not who we are," Ostanina suggested that the pensioner had been "misled by propaganda."

Norkin went on to say that "to avoid problems" in future there could be a better way to react to "the victim of Ukrainian propaganda" as his fellow host, Ivan Trushkin ran with an idea mooted by Ostanina that children should be taught Moscow messaging from "kindergarten."

Trushkin then introduced a clip which showed how Russian children "are being taught" about the war.

This included participants at a karate festival being given medals bearing the letter "Z", a Russian symbol for the war, that had been made out of "remnants" of U.S-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS.

The narrator of the clip also said that children all over Russia had been given "lessons in courage," some of which had been dedicated to the T-34 tank, the Soviet workhorse first used during World War Two.

The exchange on NTV was shared by Russia watcher and journalist Julia Davis who tweeted how the pundits' solution to the incident was "more propaganda, starting in kindergarten, to ensure there aren't many opponents of Putin's wars."