Alex Salmond hailed as ‘brave Russian-like fighter’ by Kremlin TV chief

Head of Russian media group RT, pays tribute to former Scotish first minister who hosted show on network until 2022

One of Vladimir Putin’s most senior propagandists has hailed Alex Salmond as an “infinitely brave, almost Russian-like fighter”.
Margarita Simonyan, the head of the major Kremlin media group RT, wrote a tribute to Mr Salmond shortly after Scotland’s former first minister died of a heart attack at the age of 69 in North Macedonia on Saturday.
“Eternal memory to the infinitely brave, almost Russian-like soulful, tireless fighter for the independence of his native Scotland, the former first minister of this country and, finally, RT host Alex Salmond,” she said on her Telegram account.
RT, previously called Russia Today, is one of the Kremlin’s largest English-language channels. It was banned in Britain after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine for spreading “Kremlin disinformation”.
Mr Salmond had a show on the channel for more than four years from 2017.
The British government has sanctioned Ms Simonyan for actions “which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity of Ukraine”. She is one of the most recognisable faces on Russian TV, regularly appearing on prime-time chat shows to defend the Kremlin’s invasion.
Mr Salmond was the driving force behind the pro-independence campaign for the 2014 referendum on whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom, a project that the Kremlin supported.
Russia thought Scottish independence would undermine and distract Britain just as the Kremlin was completing its initial invasion of Ukraine through the eastern Donbas region and Crimea.
A report by Atlantic Council, a US think tank, in 2017 accused the Kremlin of launching thousands of bots on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to provoke outrage at the result of the referendum, which the Unionists won.
Sputnik, RT’s sister English-language propaganda channel, set up an office in Edinburgh.
The Alex Salmond Show ran from its debut in November 2017 until February 24 2022 when, after months of build-up, Russian forces expanded their invasion of Ukraine.
UK ministers accused the political talk show of being an “appalling Kremlin propaganda programme”, continuing to broadcast just days before the invasion, although Mr Salmond always insisted that he had full autonomy over output.
Slainte Media, the company owned by Mr Salmond that produced the show, is reported to have been paid £330,000 by RT over its four-and-a-half year run.