RT is a Russian state-controlled international news television network funded by the Russian government. It operates pay television and free-to-air channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in Russian, English, Spanish, French, German and Arabic.
Vladimir Rudolfovich Solovyov is a Russian TV presenter and propagandist. He has been an anchor on the television show Evening with Vladimir Solovyov on Russia-1 since 2012.
Peter John Lavelle is an American journalist and host of CrossTalk, a political talk show on the English-language TV channel RT, which is controlled by the Russian state. He is the co-founder and co-host, with George Szamuely, of the political commentary show, TheGaggle, on Locals. Lavelle, originally from Tustin, California is now based in Moscow.
Douglas Abbott Macgregor is a retired U.S. Army colonel and government official, and an author, consultant, and television commentator. He led an early tank battle in the Gulf War and was a top planner in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. His 1997 book Breaking the Phalanx argued for radical reforms inside the Army. His thinking contributed to the US strategy in its 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Tulsi Gabbard is an American politician, United States Army Reserve officer and political commentator who was the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. Gabbard was the first Hindu member of Congress and also the first Samoan-American voting member of Congress. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election, before announcing in October 2022 that she had quit the Democratic Party and become an independent.
RT America was a U.S.-based news channel headquartered in Washington, D.C. Owned by TV Novosti and operated by production company T&R Productions, it was a part of the RT network, a global multilingual television news network based in Moscow and funded by the Russian government. The channel said it reached an audience of 85 million people in the United States, but this figure is disputed. It was distributed through select cable providers, over-the-top services, a live stream through its website, and three low-power digital subchannels. Since the channel's closure, viewers who tune into the cable channel or their live stream are being shown a live feed of an RT International broadcast instead.
Margarita Simonovna Simonyan is a Russian media executive. She is the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, as well as the state-owned media group Rossiya Segodnya.
Abigail Suzanne Martin is an American journalist, TV presenter, and activist. She helped found the citizen journalism website Media Roots and serves on the board of directors for the Media Freedom Foundation which manages Project Censored. Martin appeared in the documentary film Project Censored The Movie: Ending the Reign of Junk Food News (2013), and co-directed 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film (2013).
Anton Vyacheslavovich Krasovsky (Kuznetsov-Krasovsky) is a Russian television presenter, journalist and activist. He was a presenter and director of Russian-language broadcasting on the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT from 2020 until his suspension in October 2022, after comments he made caused a backlash. Previously, he came to prominence for his defense of gay rights in Russia, including his criticism of the Russian gay propaganda law.
Ruptly GmbH is a Russian state-owned video news agency specializing in video-on-demand, based in Berlin, Germany. It is a subsidiary of the Russian state-controlled television network RT. Ruptly owns the media channel Redfish and is the major shareholder of the digital content company Maffick. Its chief executive is Dinara Toktosunova. Upon Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the company faced a staff exodus. In January 2023, Toktosunova was sanctioned by Ukraine.
Media portrayals of the Russo-Ukrainian War, including skirmishes in eastern Donbas and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution after the Euromaidan protests, the subsequent 2014 annexation of Crimea, incursions into Donbas, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have differed widely between Ukrainian, Western and Russian media. Russian, Ukrainian, and Western media have all, to various degrees, been accused of propagandizing, and of waging an information war.
Sputnik is a Russian state-owned news agency and radio broadcast service. It was established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya on 10 November 2014. With headquarters in Moscow, Sputnik maintains regional editorial offices in Washington, D.C., Cairo, Beijing, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro. Sputnik describes itself as being focused on global politics and economics and aims for an international audience.
RT UK, also known as Russia Today, was a free-to-air television news channel based in the United Kingdom. It was part of the RT network, a Russian state-controlled international television network funded by the federal tax budget of the Russian government. The channel's head was Nikolay Bogachikhin. Launched in 2014, it ran live broadcasts for seven years and ceased broadcasting from London in July 2021.
The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies, and may involve using "Soviet-style 'active measures' as an element of modern Russian 'political warfare'". Notably, contemporary Russian propaganda promotes the cult of personality of Vladimir Putin and positive views of Soviet history. Russia has established a number of organizations, such as the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests, the Russian web brigades, and others that engage in political propaganda to promote the views of the Russian government.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district, began on January 11, 2019. In January 2020, she was polling at about 1 to 2 percent. Had she won, she would have become the first female, Hindu, and Samoan president in American history, and the youngest person to ever hold the office. She made reducing military activity abroad a central message of her campaign.
The Russian information war against Ukraine was first articulated by Valery Gerasimov in 2013. He believed that Western governments were instigating color revolutions and the Arab Spring, which posed a threat to Russia. Gerasimov's definition reflected his view of Western involvement in these events, particularly the 2011–2013 Russian protests.
As part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state and state-controlled media have spread disinformation in an information war. Russian propaganda and fake news stories have attacked Ukraine's right to exist and accused it of being a neo-Nazi state, committing genocide against Russian speakers, developing nuclear and biological weapons, and being influenced by Satanism. Russian propaganda also accuses NATO of controlling Ukraine and building up military infrastructure in Ukraine to threaten Russia. Some of this disinformation has been spread by Russian web brigades. It has been widely rejected as untrue and crafted to justify the invasion and even to justify genocidal acts against Ukrainians. The Russian state has denied carrying out war crimes in Ukraine, and Russian media has falsely blamed some of them on Ukrainian forces instead. Some of the disinformation seeks to undermine international support for Ukraine and to provoke hostility against Ukrainian refugees.
Russian disinformation campaigns have occurred in many countries. For example, in Africa, disinformation campaigns led by Yevgeny Prigozhin have been reported in several countries. Russia, however, denies that it uses disinformation to influence public opinion.
In March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials falsely claimed that public health facilities in Ukraine were "secret U.S.-funded biolabs" purportedly developing biological weapons, which was debunked as disinformation by multiple media outlets, scientific groups, and international bodies. The claim was amplified by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese state media, and was also promoted by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory and subsequently supported by other far-right groups in the United States.
