The Kremlin-controlled state media channel Russia 1 ran explicit photos of Melania Trump during a segment last week in the wake of her husband's U.S. election victory.
The sequence, which highlighted several pictures from her modeling career, was shown during the prime-time show "60 Minutes," hosted by propagandists Olga Skabeeva and Yevgeny Popov.
"Here is how Melania looked in the year 2000. This is the cover of the magazine GQ," Popov says.
"In one of the shots, the model is only wearing her underwear, lying on a blue carpet with the United States seal, as though the editors of the men's magazine knew something in advance about the future of their model," he added with a smirk.
Beside him, Skabeeva can be seen visibly trying to suppress laughter.
Melania Trump, originally from Slovenia, was a professional model when they first met in 1998.
It's not immediately clear why the government-controlled TV and its prime-time news program chose this particular angle. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin suppressed freedom of speech in the country in the early 2000s and placed a tight grip on all mainstream TV networks, with little has been allowed to be aired in Russia without the government's permission.
Trump won the presidential vote on Nov. 6, defeating his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The election is expected to have a profound impact on Russia's war in Ukraine, as some worry Trump might seek to cut a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the cost of painful concessions by Kyiv.
Putin congratulated Trump on his victory in the U.S. presidential election, saying he was ready "to have discussions" with Trump during the Valdai forum in Sochi on Nov. 7.
But earlier this week, the Kremlin denied that a widely reported phone conversation took place between the two during which Trump reportedly warned Putin "not to escalate" the war in Ukraine.
Martin Fornusek
(Updated: )
