Choose your friends carefully...

This is the logo of Russia Today, a news station available on line and on satellite. It doesn't say so but this is a channel set up and financed by the Russian government to present us with a world view from a Russian angle. 

RT is backing Scotland's bid for independence. Good of them, eh? But a wise viewer would watch with just a hint of suspicion and ask why Scottish independence would matter to Russia. 

You no doubt remember that Russia recently took over a huge swathe of Ukrainian territory in the Crimea. The invasion was described by the Russian government as a rebellion by local Ukrainians declaring their independence. In the last few weeks, rebel Ukrainians have staged further uprisings in the east of Ukraine - the bit nearest Russia. The rebels (or Russians?) are carefully controlling the news from that part of the world but pictures and reports have emerged of rebels dressed remarkably like Russian soldiers 'defending' territory from the Ukrainian army. 

You have to go back a wee bit to work out Russia's agenda here. It's about access. And it's about Vladimir Putin trying to restore Russia's position as a world power.

Way back before the USSR was created, the Russian empire had access in the east to the Pacific ocean and in the north west to the Atlantic ocean but wanted an ice-free seaport further south. On the Black Sea. With access to the Mediterranean. Losing Ukraine when it became independent was a blow to Russia. That was before Putin's time and it's no surprise Putin, the hard man, has taken steps to recover some of this strategic land mass. 

Ukraine is westward-looking: there's an item in today's papers about how Ukraine plans to join the EU by 2020. Not good news for Russia: a lot of EU countries are NATO members and NATO is the only agency large enough to take action to stop Russia's land-grab in Ukraine - and wherever else in the former USSR Putin fancies taking back. 

And Russia's agenda in Scotland? The UK is a member of NATO and will back whatever NATO proposes. Anything that undermines the UK - like losing quite a bit of its home territory to independence - can only be seen as good to the Russian government. So suddenly Scotland is on Putin's Christmas card list. 

That said, some of the Max Kaiser reports on Scottish independence on RT are interesting because they tell us things we don't hear on the laughably biased UK TV and in the UK press. But we should watch them warily, just as we should watch the Chinese channel CCTV, Fox News and Sky News with suspicion. I wish I could say some of the satellite stations give an alternative world view that's worth watching but so far as I can see the Japanese channel and the French channel are no more than extended travel documentaries for their countries. 

Al-Jazeera is maybe the only satellite station giving anything like a balanced view of the world. It's always a give-away when other broadcasters defer to al-Jazeera's views, as they do over the Middle East.