States – Sanctions against
Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of Russia's state-controlled
Rossiya Segodnya and RT television presenter, have been in place since the
2014 invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea. The
EU Council cites Kiselyov to be a "central figure of the government propaganda supporting the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine". Initially, Russian state-owned media outlets were not banned and continued to be available in the EU, with the exception of Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. The
European Parliament Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (INGE) described RT as "actively engaging in disinformation activities" and highlighted that RT and
Sputnik are pushing local broadcasters in Europe off from the market thanks to massive funding from Russian Federation. Editor-in-chief
Margarita Simonyan was sanctioned by the European Union on 23 February 2022 when Russia recognized the
Donetsk and
Luhansk breakaway states. On 27 February 2022, the EU banned RT and Sputnik from broadcasting in its member countries, following the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The RT channel was removed from Australian pay TV provider
Foxtel's listings the next day due to concerns about the situation in Ukraine. – On 16 March 2022, the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission banned RT and RT France from broadcasting in Canada. – After failing to obtain a broadcast license compliant with the ,
RT DE was banned in Germany by the (ZAK) on 2 February 2022. The Russian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded with "retaliatory measures" to remove German broadcaster
Deutsche Welle from Russia. – Chief Minister
Fabian Picardo requested a nationwide ban of RT on 25 February 2022 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, describing RT as "a dangerous source of disinformation that Gibraltar cannot accept on its networks". Television providers in Gibraltar agreed to suspend broadcasts of RT. – At the end of June 2020, after new amendments to the Law on Electronic Media were made, seven RT channels were banned in Latvia for being under the control of
Dmitry Kiselyov who had been sanctioned by the European Union since 2014. Chairperson of the National Electronic Mass Media Council Ivars Āboliņš said they will be asking all EU state regulators to follow their example and restrict RT in their territory. Kiselyov called the decision "an indicator of the level of stupidity and ignorance of the Latvian authorities, blinded by Russophobia". –
Linas Antanas Linkevičius, Lithuania's Minister of Foreign Affairs, posted on Twitter on 9 March 2014 amid the
annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, "Russia Today propaganda machine is no less destructive than military marching in Crimea". It was banned by the Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania on 8 July 2020. The decision of both Latvian and Lithuanian authorities was criticised by
Reporters Without Borders as "misuse of the EU sanctions policy". – The
National Broadcasting Council banned RT in Poland on 24 February 2022 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. – RT has been banned in Ukraine by the
Ministry of Internal Affairs since August 2014, following the
invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory. – On 18 March 2022, ANO TV Novosti's broadcasting license was revoked by
Ofcom, effectively banning RT from being broadcast. This was taken in the wake of RT UK being funded by the Russian government, which, when combined with their promotion of Russian state narratives with regard to sanctions and its invasion of Ukraine, was deemed a violation of neutrality standards. This came after an investigation was launched on 2 March 2022 in these matters, also involving the invasion. – In September 2017, the
US Department of Justice compelled RT to file paperwork under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act in the United States. Previously, the
United States Secretary of State John Kerry had referred to RT as a state-sponsored "propaganda bullhorn" and he continued by saying, " network has deployed to promote president Putin's fantasy about what is playing out on the ground. They almost spend full-time devoted to this effort, to propagandize, and to distort what is happening or not happening in Ukraine." RT responded that they wanted "an official response from the U.S. Department of State substantiating Mr. Kerry's claims".
Richard Stengel from the U.S.
Department of State responded. Stengel stated in his response, "RT is a distortion machine, not a news organization", concluding that "the network and its editors should not pretend that RT is anything other than another player in Russia's global disinformation campaign against the people of Ukraine and their supporters". However, Stengel supports RT's right to broadcast in the United States.
Political involvement In April 2017, during his successful run for President of France,
Emmanuel Macron's
campaign team banned both RT and the
Sputnik news agency from campaign events. A Macron spokesperson said the two outlets showed a "systematic desire to issue fake news and false information". Macron later said during a press conference that RT and Sputnik were "agencies of influence and propaganda, lying propaganda—no more, no less". RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan characterized Macron's remarks on RT as an attack on freedom of speech. In October 2017, Twitter banned both RT and Sputnik from advertising on their social networking service amid accusations of
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, sparking an angry response from the
Russian foreign ministry. Twitter in August 2020 began to identify RT, along with other Russian and Chinese media outlets, as "state-affiliated media" in a prominent place at the top of their accounts on the social media platform. In November 2017,
Alphabet chairman
Eric Schmidt announced that Google will be "deranking" stories from RT and Sputnik in response to allegations about election meddling by President Putin's government, provoking an accusation of censorship from both outlets. In March 2018,
John McDonnell, the
Shadow Chancellor of the
British Labour Party, advised fellow Labour MPs to boycott RT and said he would no longer appear on the channel. He said: "We tried to be fair with them and as long as they abide by journalistic standards that are objective that's fine but it looks as if they have gone beyond that line". A party representative said: "We are keeping the issue under review". In July 2019, the
UK Foreign Office banned both RT and Sputnik from attending the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London for "their active role in spreading disinformation". The Russian Embassy called the decision "direct politically motivated discrimination", while RT responded in a statement: "It takes a particular brand of hypocrisy to advocate for freedom of press while banning inconvenient voices and slandering
alternative media."
Other responses 2008–2012 During the
2008 South Ossetia War, RT correspondent William Dunbar resigned after the network refused to let him report on Russian airstrikes of civilian targets, stating, "any issue where there is a Kremlin line, RT is sure to toe it". According to
Variety, sources at RT confirmed that Dunbar had resigned, saying that it was not over bias. One senior RT journalist told the magazine, "the Russian coverage I have seen has been much better than much of the Western coverage... Russian news coverage is largely pro-Russia, but that is to be expected." Shaun Walker, the Moscow correspondent for
The Independent, said that RT had "instructed reporters not to report from Georgian villages within
South Ossetia that had been
ethnically cleansed". in Moscow on 10 December 2011 In 2012, Jesse Zwick of
The New Republic criticized RT, stating it held that "civilian casualties in Syria are minimal, foreign intervention would be disastrous, and any humanitarian appeals from Western nations are a thin veil for a NATO-backed move to isolate Iran, China, and Russia". He wrote that RT wants to "make the United States look out of line for lecturing Russia". In a June 2011 broadcast of
Adam vs. the Man, host
Adam Kokesh endorsed fundraising for Paul, leading to a complaint to the
Federal Election Commission charging a political contribution had been made by a foreign corporation. Kokesh said his cancellation in August was related to Paul's aide
Jesse Benton rather than the complaint. An August 2013 story concerning unverified reports of the killing of 450
Kurdish civilians near the Turkey-Syria border was also found to have breached Ofcom's rules. That December, Ofcom found RT in breach of its standards in relation to the impartiality of a documentary entitled "Syrian Diary" broadcast the previous March. Speaking in 2014 former RT reporter Sara Firth said that there had previously been examples of senior editorial interference, and that she had been pulled out of Syria after some "very heated discussions" about the channel's coverage. Later, Martin asserted that RT still supports her despite her differences of opinion with the Russian government. RTs press office suggested that Martin would be sent to
Crimea and responded to accusations of propaganda, stating "the charges of propaganda tend to pop up every time a news outlet, particularly RT, dares to show the side of events that does not fit the mainstream narrative, regardless of the realities on the ground. This happened in
Georgia, this is happening in
Ukraine".
Glenn Greenwald said that American media elites love to mock Russian media, especially RT, as being a source of shameless pro-Putin propaganda, where free expression is strictly barred. Agreeing the "network has a strong pro-Russian bias", he suggested that Martin's action "remarkably demonstrated what 'journalistic independence' means". On 5 March 2014, RT Washington, D.C. bureau anchor Liz Wahl resigned on air, blaming RT for propaganda. Wahl stated that what "broke" her was that RT censored a question from her interview with Ron Paul about "Russia's
intervention in Ukraine". In response, RT released a statement: "When a journalist disagrees with the editorial position of his or her organization, the usual course of action is to address those grievances with the editor, and, if they cannot be resolved, to quit like a professional. But when someone makes a big public show of a personal decision, it is nothing more than a self-promotional stunt. We wish Liz the best of luck on her chosen path". In a March 2014
Politico article, Wahl stated: "For about two and a half years. I'd looked the other way as the network smeared America for the sake of making the Kremlin look better by comparison, while it sugarcoated atrocities by one brutal dictator after another." Former RT Moscow anchor Staci Bivens, and other former RT journalists speaking under anonymity according to
BuzzFeed, said they regretted working for the network, citing their dislike of the network's use of propaganda. Bivens, for example, was explicitly asked to go to Germany and procure a story proving that "Germany is a
failed state". When she refused, other reporters were sent instead. Steve Bloomfield, the foreign editor of
Monocle wrote that RT's "coverage of Ukraine could not have been kinder to Moscow if Vladimir Putin had chosen the running order himself. While Putin kept up the pretence that there were no Russian troops in Crimea, so too did RT. The storming of government buildings across eastern Ukraine has been portrayed as the understandable actions of peace-loving protesters who fear "chaos" in Kiev". After the July 2014 crash of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, RT rushed to blame others for the plane's shoot-down in Ukraine amid accusations by Ukrainian fighters of Russian involvement in the crash. Speaking of RT's coverage, Sarah Oates, professor of journalism at the
University of Maryland said: "But if you're going to engage in propaganda, you have to do it well. They have completely embarrassed themselves." Sara Firth, a London-based correspondent with RT resigned in protest over the network's coverage of the MH17 disaster. Shortly before resigning, she
tweeted, "RT style guide Rule 1: It is ALWAYS * Ukraine's fault (* add name as applicable)". She told
The Guardian: "I walked into the newsroom and there was an eyewitness account making allegations [against Ukraine] and analysis, if you can call it, from our correspondent in the studio. It was just appalling, in a situation like that where there are families waiting to be informed and a devastating loss of life." She also noted that "There is bias against Russia but you don't counter wrong by doing even more wrong" and stated "I have always said it's better to have RT than to not have that perspective, but actually with a story like this and the way they misreport it, it's quite dangerous, I don't want to be party to it." In follow-up interview she said: "In Ukraine, you're taking a very small part of a much wider story, totally omitted the context of the story, and so what you wind up with on air is outright misinformation." Calling RT "mass information manipulation", Firth said: "they have a very clear idea in their mind of what they're trying to prove". She also stated that "The worst-kept secret is that RT is blatant propaganda. I'm one in a very long line of people who have left for the same reason." For repeated breaches of its
due impartiality rules, Ofcom put RT management "on notice that any future breaches of the due impartiality rules may result in further regulatory action, including consideration of a
statutory sanction".
2015–2016 In January 2015, Ofcom found RT (and the BBC) not in breach of rules on generally accepted standards following a complaint about the use of graphic imagery of bodies at the MH17 crash site. Following the March 2015
European Council summit which concluded that action was needed to "challenge Russia's ongoing disinformation campaigns", the
European External Action Service was tasked to respond.
European Parliament briefing notes on the situation called RT "Russia's main international media weapon". The counter-propaganda strategy subsequently developed by the EastStratCom Task Force, a small group of eight officials, included launching the
EU vs Disinformation website with a headline of "don't be deceived, question even more". In September 2015, Ofcom found RT in breach of the impartiality rules in its coverage of the events in Ukraine and
Syria. It also upheld the complaint by the
BBC that allegations made in an episode of
The Truthseeker that a BBC
Panorama film, ''
Saving Syria's Children'', had faked a parts of a report on a chemical weapon attack in Syria were "materially misleading". In an episode of
The Truthseeker, named
Genocide of Eastern Ukraine, they stated that the Ukrainian government was deliberately bombing civilians and had murdered and tortured journalists, as well as
crucifying babies. Ukrainian army forces were accused of "ethnic cleansing" and were compared to the Nazis in World War Two. The only response to the allegations in the broadcast was in the form of a caption saying "Kiev claims it is not committing genocide, denies casualty reports", which appeared on screen for six seconds. According to Ofcom the broadcast had "little or no counterbalance or objectivity". In October 2015,
David J. Kramer, senior director for human rights and democracy at the
McCain Institute for International Leadership, suggested that Western countries freeze RT's assets "not because of the odious things it spews" but as part of the
Yukos shareholder case. A report released by the US think-tank the
RAND Corporation in 2016 called RT part of "a wider Russian propaganda operation" named the "Firehose of Falsehood". The paper called "Russian faux-news propaganda channels, such as RT" insidious and that "they look like news programs, and the persons appearing on them are represented as journalists and experts, making audience members much more likely to ascribe credibility to the misinformation these sources are disseminating". In July 2016, Ofcom again found RT in breach of its impartiality rules, this time over coverage of the Turkish government's treatment of
Kurdish people. Two episodes of
Going Underground originally broadcast in March, included claims of attacks, atrocities and
genocide against the Kurds, and that "Turkey supports ISIS" without offering adequate counterbalance. RT's representatives stated the network "finds it especially difficult to obtain pro-Turkey views for its programming" because of "political tensions between Russia and Turkey following the downing of a Russian military aircraft by Turkish warplanes in November 2015". In November 2016, after the
US presidential election,
The Washington Post reported that RT and Sputnik were "state-funded Russian information services that mimic the style and tone of independent news organizations yet sometimes include false and misleading stories in their reports" and also that "RT, Sputnik and other Russian sites used social-media accounts to amplify misleading stories already circulating online". The
Post was criticized by
The Intercept and
Fortune for relying in part on an analysis by
PropOrNot. In December 2016, Ofcom found RT in breach of its impartiality rules for the 10th time since the English-language channel launched. A
Crosstalk episode broadcast the previous July, contained a
debate about the
NATO 2016 Warsaw summit in which all members of the panel expressed critical views. RT's representatives again stated that they couldn't find anybody with alternative opinions willing to take part, and that captions with pro-NATO comments should have been added before broadcast, but the wrong text was accidentally used.
2017–2018 On 12 January 2017, RT was accidentally broadcast for around 10 minutes on a web stream of U.S. public affairs service
C-SPAN. RT stated that while it was testing its systems in preparation for the
inauguration of Donald Trump, its signal was "mistakenly routed onto the primary encoder feeding C-SPAN1's signal to the internet, rather than to an unused backup". In September 2017, the
U.S. Department of Justice informed RT America that it must register as a
foreign agent of the Russian government. Margarita Simonyan, RT's editor-in-chief, condemned the action as an assault on
freedom of speech. A spokesperson for the
Russian foreign ministry threatened retaliatory measures against American journalists. On 13 November 2017, RT America officially registered as a "foreign agent" in the United States with the
Department of Justice under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act. Under the act, RT will be required to disclose financial information. In December 2018, the British media regulator
Ofcom ruled that seven programmes broadcast by RT between 17 March and 26 April of that year, in the wake of the
Salisbury nerve agent attacks, had breached the UK's impartiality rules; the BBC reported that RT was "extremely disappointed by Ofcom's conclusions". RT was fined £200,000 but kept its licence to broadcast in the UK. RT described Ofcom's actions against it as "inappropriate and disproportionate per Ofcom's own track record".
2021 German journalist Daniel Lange employed by RT DE left the station in protest against its operation to spy on
Alexey Navalny while he was undergoing treatment in a hospital in Germany after
being poisoned by FSB. According to Lange, the assignment had nothing to do with journalism as he was instructed in the first place to test the security of the hospital, describe number of internal checkpoints and his RT leadership clearly indicated collected information will not be used for publication. Lange also described reporting bias in the RT where he was instructed by the editor to specifically select footage showing "all the filth of Germany". Russia threatened to ban YouTube in September for deleting the RT channels, RT DE and Der Fehlende Part. The platform had banned the RT channels for breaking its policies on spreading
COVID-19 misinformation and for using the second channel to circumvent an initial week-long suspension.
2022 In January, the
State Department's
Global Engagement Center (GEC) published a report titled "Kremlin-Funded Media: RT and Sputnik's Role in Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem." Its case studies included one on "false narratives" published by RT concerning the Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border. Employees and associates of RT and its subsidiary
Ruptly in multiple countries, including the UK and Germany, resigned in response to the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, with some attributing their departures to the Russian government's prohibition of using the word "
invasion" to describe the military offensive.
Frédéric Taddeï quit his role as host of the RT France talk show ''
Interdit d'interdire on 23 February when Russia recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway states immediately preceding the invasion. Former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond suspended his RT talk show, The Alex Salmond Show'', on 24 February after receiving public criticism following the invasion. A number of British journalists based both in RT's offices in Moscow and at
RT UK's now-disbanded offices in London resigned from the network in response to its coverage of the invasion; according to
The Times, four have "publicly announced their resignation, while others are said to have quietly left RT's London bureau". On 25 February, hacking group
Anonymous claimed a
distributed denial of service attack on the network's website, in support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The following day,
Alphabet Inc., the owners of
Google, temporarily barred RT from receiving any financial return from their ads on their YouTube platform.
2024 In September 2024, the United States indicted two RT employees in New York and imposed sanctions on RT executives. The same month,
Antony Blinken announced additional sanctions against RT-affiliated entities and individuals, stating that in 2023 RT established a unit with "cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence" as well as cooperation with
Global South allies to counter RT. RT was also accused of covertly fundraising to procure body armor, sniper rifles, and other equipment for Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. == Awards and nominations ==