RT anchor tells Russians awaiting speech to go to bed.

After making media wait for over two hours past the scheduled start of a big press conference with his Defense Minister Sergei Shogyu on Tuesday, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has reportedly pushed it off until Wednesday. It’s not clear what specifically Putin had planned to address in the appearance that was to have been broadcast live on RT and other major national networks, though the planned collaborationist referendums to annex large swaths of Eastern Ukraine that were announced earlier Tuesday would’ve been safe bets. Some sources also hinted a declaration of a general mobilization something thus far which Putin has avoided, reportedly in fear of an uprising.

RT editor and Putin mouthpiece Margarita Simonyan posted on Telegram that Russians should “go to sleep” rather than await Putin’s speech.  The live feed from Russian television featured two hours of the carrier’s logo followed by a two-minute clip of ballet dancers.

The use of ballet dancers–specifically, a performance of “Swan Lake” by Russia’s official ballet troupe–is unique in Russian history as a harbinger of news.  In 1991, state-controlled television stations switched to a recorded performance of “Swan Lake” as an attempted coup tried to topple the government of the Soviet Union.  Soviet state TV also showed “Swan Lake” after the deaths of Soviet Premiers Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko and Yuri Andropov.  And earlier this year, Russian independent television station TV Rain put “Swan Lake” on the air after its license had been suspended by the Kremlin because it broadcast anti-Ukraine invasion editorials.