Last week, RT aired an exclusive interview between its Editor-in-Chief, Margarita Simonyan, and the two men named as suspects in the Skripal poisoning case.

Reception of the interview across social media was overwhelmingly negative, with audiences roundly rejecting the two men’s account. More than this, many of those who viewed the interview found that it caused them to rethink their opinions about Russian government involvement in the poisoning. Still others found that the interview reflected poorly on RT itself.

Reframing Russia’s Precious Chatterje-Doody and Rhys Crilley analyse RT’s coverage of the Skripal affair, and share their preliminary analysis of audience reactions to it, over on the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog.