Russian Missiles: BBC quick to pounce

BBC lead reports Russian navy as denying that two missiles failed to launch and then cites Russian sources claiming the opposite.

The BBC just loves to find a smear story to report about Russia. If it is not a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, or an accident, it is a military exercise that went wrong. This time, it is the case of the two invisible ballistic missiles.

According to the BBC's sources (which are famous these days) two ballistic missiles failed to launch in the military exercise in the Barents Sea today due to a failure in a satellite. The sources are quoted as "Russian news agencies", later revealed as Interfax and Itar-Tass, who quoted "an unnamed navy officer", who stated that the two missiles were supposed to leave the Novomosskovsk submarine, destined for a target in Kamchatka, in the Russian Far East.

However, Northern Fleet sources declared to the press today that the exercise had gone according to plan. Had the BBC bothered to check its sources, they would have discovered that the Novomosskovsk was supposed to make a computer simulation of the ballistic missile launch, which it did, after which the submarine returned to base.

The BBC's article finishes with the regurgitation of the Kursk disaster. How the western press loves to hate Russia.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru