Ah ok, missed that. It's worse that it's an editorial, setting out the official stance of the paper, rather than the deniability of just one columnist's opinion piece.

'On top of all this, Ukrainians and their western supporters have had to endure the sight of the insufferable Vladimir Putin, an indicted war criminal, courting China and the “global south” by video at the Brics summit and hosting a fellow mass murderer, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, for talks on illegal arms deals.'

Yes, difficult to imagine how they could get the propaganda much denser. Abandoning any pretence of impartiality or objectivity in the usual way when it comes to official enemies. It's never open season in this way on western leaders or their toadies, however justified, eg:

'On top of all this, Iraqis and their western supporters have had to endure the sight of the insufferable George Bush, an indicted war criminal, courting Saudi Arabia and the “coalition of the willing” at a NATO summit and hosting a fellow mass murderer, Israel's Benjamin Netenyahu, for talks on illegal arms deals.'

Of course anybody routinely using that kind of language to refer to our bloodthirsty war criminals would get sacked from the graun/observer in about 5 seconds.

I