Russian state media has accused a prominent female US news presenter and journalist of allegedly attempting to flirt with and seduce Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview last week by positioning herself as a sex object.
Russian state media pundits are claiming that acclaimed CNBC journalist Hadley Gamble was part of an American "special operation" designed to tantalize the Russian leader during the on-stage interview.
Putin too drew criticism for referring to Gamble during one of the sessions as too "beautiful" and "pretty" to understand Europe's gas crisis. However, it is Gamble who is now being blamed by the Russian state media for distracting Putin by flirting with him.
Blame Game
Gamble was the moderator for a session involving Putin at an energy forum in Moscow last week. Putin drew criticism for describing Gamble as "beautiful" and "pretty" while referring to the ongoing fuel crisis in Europe. However, the Russian state media is now targeting the United States claiming that Gamble tried to flirt with the Russian leader.
Vladimir Solovyov, a Putin 'propagandist', has used his Rossiya 1 news channel show to share a few unseen moments from the interview in which he claims Gamble attempts to "distract" the Russian leader by flirting with him.
The footage focuses on Gamble's legs. Gamble is seen raising her legs partly to attract Putin's attention. Another presenter, Dmitry Kiselyov, has claimed that Gamble used her "body language" at "full steam" to seduce Putin during the on-stage interview.
On another popular state TV show 60 Minutes, host Olga Skabeeva said that Gamble was part of an American "special operation" targeting the Russian president.
She said, "Let me remind you that only a short time ago there was a huge scandal when it turned out that Putin brought translator Daria Boyarskaya to his negotiations with Donald Trump... Look at Comrade Gamble, she is also a beauty. Look at Megyn Kelly, she is the woman the Americans brought the last time. She was a blonde, this time it's a brunette. They're in the same age and weight category. They keep trying to get to Putin."
However, the footage shared by Solovyov has gone viral since. The leg footage was seen by state TV as an unsuccessful bid to throw the 69-year-old Putin off guard.
"Naturally not everything was included in the TV broadcast, so this is what was seen by the audience, and by our crew," Solovyov said on the show.
Wild Attack
Although Russian media pundits have been claiming that the United States was using Gamble to distract Putin, the Russian strongman himself was quite impressed with the journalist.
In fact, in a brief exchange on the sidelines of the forum, Putin seemed to find Gamble quite charming, at least until she started to ask questions. His suggestion that she was too "beautiful" to understand Europe's flue crisis came when Gamble pressed Putin on whether Moscow was holding back gas supply to Europe to force up prices and increase the pressure to approve the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
That said, Russia's attack appears to have stemmed from the a recently released book by former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham where she writes that Trump's White House adviser Fiona Hill believed Putin had likely selected an attractive female interpreter "specifically to distract" Trump.
That was to a great extent evident from the what reporter Pavel Zarubin said on Sunday's episode of Russian state TV show Moscow.Kremlin.Putin. Zarubin on his show said that Putin doesn't even need a translator, since he speaks English.
Thus it can be concluded that Russian experts and pundits roundly believe that Gamble was America's response to Putin's choice of an attractive interpreter.
According to a Daily Mail report, after viewing the footage, body language expert Judy James noted that "all ancient body language flirt manuals cite the act of pointing your foot in someone's direction as signaling attraction."
However, Gamble who has been caught in crossfire tried to make the situation light by posting a photo to her Instagram account. The photo shows Gamble holding up a Russian newspaper with a front-page article that appears to be about her legs and sex appeal.
