Photo Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Getty Images The new year is off to a rocky start for Moscow, and even its most zealous propagandists struggled to put a positive spin on the unpleasant surprises this holiday season brought for the Kremlin. While most of them were off the air until Jan. 11 for the holidays, the U.S. carried out a surprise operation in Venezuela and dramatically seized an oil tanker sailing under a Russian flag—both adding salt in the wound as the Kremlin’s bets in Ukraine peace talks don’t seem to be paying off, with U.S. President Donald Trump last week greenlighting a bipartisan sanctions bill. Sergey Karnaukhov, the host of Karnaukhov’s Labyrinth on the Solovyov Live channel, complained that these events demonstrated Russia’s weakness and thus ruined the holiday season for many Russian citizens. He was especially aggrieved after having previously boasted about how effectively Russia would protect Nicolás Maduro, who wisely placed his trust in the Kremlin. Read more at The Daily Beast.