Provocateur and propagandist Olga Skabeeva was born December 11, 1984 in Volzhsky, Volgograd region. My father is a civil engineer by profession, and my mother is an architect.
She studied at a private Russian-American school, then at School No. 23, from which she graduated with honors in 2003.
Contrary to her parents’ desire to continue their work, in high school Skabeyeva announced her decision to become a journalist. She got her first journalistic experience in the local free advertising and information newspaper “City Week”. She was also a correspondent for the newspaper Volzhskaya Pravda, working in show business. Due to a shortage of cultural and entertainment events in her hometown, in the evenings she went to Volgograd, where she interviewed the touring stars backstage at concert venues.
In 2003-2008, she studied journalism at St. Petersburg State University.
During her studies, she worked for a year as a correspondent for the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company “St. Petersburg”. She is the author of more than two hundred reports and analyses, for which on December 14, 2006 she received the Youth Award of the Government of St. Petersburg. She was announced as this year’s best young journalist. The award ceremony was held in the Smolny Building.
On March 30, 2007, she received the “Golden Pen” award in the “Perspective of the Year 2006” category. In 2008, she was nominated twice for the same award.
In 2008, she won the competition “Profession – Reporter” in the category “Investigative Journalism”.
In 2008, she graduated with honors from university and joined VGTRK’s federal newsroom, where she worked as a correspondent for the Vesti and Vesti Nedeli programs.
In April 2013, she married VGTRK journalist Yevgeny Popov. The marriage was the second for both Popov and Skabeeva. On January 14, 2014, they had a son, Zakhar.
In 2015-2016 she hosted the author’s program “Vesti.doc” on the TV channel “Russia-1”.
Since September 12, 2016, together with her husband Yevgeny Popov, she has hosted the sociopolitical talk show “60 Minutes” on Russia-1 TV channel, the main topic of which is the propaganda of war against Ukraine, creating the image of an “external enemy” represented by Ukraine and Western countries. Now Skabeeva’s main goal is to informationally support an open attack by fascist Russia on Ukraine.
Skabeyeva invites other Russian propagandists, such as Dmitry Puchkov (“Goblin”) or Yevgeny Prilepin (“Zakhar”), as guests on “60 Minutes”.
Olga Skabeeva, along with her husband Yevgeny Popov, was twice awarded the TEFI Award for her advocacy work as the host of the 60 Minutes program in 2017 and 2018, with the title “Host of a social and political prime-time talk show” in the Evening Prime category.
Skabeyeva is officially banned from entering Ukraine because of her journalistic activities aimed at propaganda of war against Ukraine.
In addition to propaganda on television, Skabeyeva also runs her own Telegram channel, which contains mostly propaganda stories. For example, it discusses the progress of the so-called “military special operation” by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and publishes briefings by the Russian Defense Ministry.
In July 2021, she was the subject of an investigation by Alexei Navalny’s FBK, which uncovered the facts of Skabeeva and Popov’s illegal purchase of real estate in Moscow. During the investigation, it turned out that the purchased real estate does not correspond to the official income of Olga Skabeeva and Yevgeny Popov. You can read more about the investigation by following this link.
On March 9, 2022, Olga Skabeeva was put on the EU sanctions list for supporting Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
It is worth noting that many viewers did not like Skabeeva for her manner of presenting information. Olga has a rather strict and harsh intonation, which makes the report aggressive. In fact, whatever her voice was, it had already become a trademark of the propagandist.
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