![](\"https:\/\/euvsdisinfo.eu\/uploads\/2022\/03\/RT-Sputnik.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The European Union has adopted sanctions against the Kremlin\u2019s weapons of deception: Sputnik and RT. Their broadcasting activities were\u00a0urgently suspended\u00a0(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>in the EU, until the Kremlin\u2019s aggression against Ukraine is put to an end and until Russia ceases to conduct disinformation and information manipulation activities against the EU and its Member States.<\/p>\n These are\u00a0exceptional, targeted and temporary<\/strong>\u00a0measures, taken in a very specific, unprecedented context \u2013 Russia\u2019s military aggression against Ukraine.<\/p>\n These measures are no \u201ccensorship\u201d or \u201cgeneral ban\u201d and strike a careful balance: they respect fundamental rights and only restrict them in a proportionate manner as part of the legally based sanctions regime. This is part of the EU\u2019s reaction to a clear threat to European peace and security.<\/p>\n The EU sanctions\u00a0do not prevent staff from working for these outlets\u00a0<\/strong>to carry out their duties. Notably though, following Russia\u2019s invasion to Ukraine, a number of RT employees\u00a0have resigned(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0throughout the world.<\/p>\n The EU sanctions against RT and Sputnik result in temporary suspension of broadcasting or emission rights to disarm the Kremlin\u2019s instruments of informational war \u2013 at the time when it is waging an actual brutal war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n RT and Sputnik may look and sound like international media outlets, but they are not. They function with one overarching goal: to\u00a0facilitate and support the Kremlin\u2019s policies abroad(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0with means of disinformation and information manipulation. RT and Sputnik and their social media offshoots aim to exacerbate fragmentation and polarisation and undermine democracies, obfuscate facts of the Kremlin\u2019s violations of international law, and manufacture support for Putin\u2019s war.<\/p>\n RT has defined its mission in military terms. Its editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, has\u00a0publicly equated<\/a>\u00a0RT\u2019s importance with that of Russian\u2019s need for a\u00a0Defense Ministry<\/a>. According to her, RT is capable of \u201cconducting information war against the whole Western world<\/strong>,\u201d using \u201cthe information weapon. RT\u2019s strategic aim is to \u201cconquer\u201d and to \u201cgrow an audience\u201d in order to make use of access to this audience in \u201ccritical moments\u201d.<\/p>\n RT is included in\u00a0an official list of core organizations(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of strategic importance for Russia. Sputnik was created by\u00a0a Presidential decree(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>, with the aim to \u201creport on the state policy of Russia abroad.\u201d RT receives\u00a0millions of roubles<\/a>\u00a0from the Russian state every year. For example almost 23 billion roubles or\u00a0\u20ac325 million<\/a>\u00a0at the time, were designated for RT in the Russian federal budget draft for 2020. Russia\u2019s overall budget for state media was nearly\u00a0\u20ac1,3 billion in 2021(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Independent journalistic investigations reveal that the chief editor of RT and Sputnik, Margarita Simonyan plays a\u00a0central role<\/a>\u00a0in the media\u00a0control<\/a>\u00a0network, which instructs Russian state-controlled media outlets on what should and should not be covered. She has\u00a0admitted(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0having a direct secure line to the Kremlin via a \u201cyellow phone.\u201d<\/p>\n The head of \u201cRossiya Segodnia\u201d\u00a0Dmitry Kiselyov<\/a>, who was sanctioned by the EU in 2014, has told his employees that \u201cthe period of impartial journalism is over,\u201d and that \u201cobjectivity is a myth.\u201d<\/p>\n RT has been serving the Kremlin\u2019s agenda in the West under the\u00a0guise of \u201calternative\u201d journalism(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>, aimed at counteracting the alleged bias of \u201cmainstream media<\/a>.\u201d It has relied on appearances of Western politicians, academics, journalists, and other influential public personalities to\u00a0boost its credibility(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>, and uses the op-ed format prolifically to disguise disinformation as an opinion.<\/p>\n But appearances are exactly that \u2013 RT cannot disguise its fundamental lack of public accountability, transparency and editorial independence. A far cry from international media standards that international public broadcasters adhere to,\u00a0RT is opaque(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0about its budget, supervisory structure, and oversight mechanisms.<\/p>\n There is a well-documented relationship between RT and Sputnik and other pillars in the Russian\u00a0disinformation ecosystem(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a collection of official, proxy, and unattributed communication channels and platforms that the Kremlin uses to create and amplify misleading and manipulative narratives.<\/p>\n RT and Sputnik facilitate and engage in\u00a0cyber-facilitated influence operations,(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0including those that have been attributed to the Russian Military Intelligence GRU.<\/p>\n RT is best understood not as a TV channel with social media presence, but as a social media operation with professional TV capabilities.\u00a0<\/strong>A\u00a02018 study(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0by UK media regulator Ofcom ranked RT\u2019s popularity second to last \u201camong adults who use TV for news,\u201d with 2 percent of the total audience share.<\/p>\n The reach of RT is far greater on social media. In the beginning of 2020, RT boasted 10 billion views across multiple YouTube channels. Yet RT\u2019s mass appeal on social media has been contested by international\u00a0media\u00a0(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>and Russian\u00a0activists(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>. Investigations revealed that RT have been artificially inflating online viewership figures to boost its notoriety and relevance as a media outlet.<\/p>\n RT has actively tried to occupy the information space within the EU with a huge volume of articles on issues of key importance to the Kremlin, like the obfuscation of facts about the poisoning of\u00a0Alexei Navalny.<\/a>\u00a0RT\u2019s use of sensationalist, misleading headlines to boost social media engagement combined with lax copyright policies created a dangerous ecosystem for RT content to be easily amplified by proxy websites \u2013 either unwittingly or purposefully.<\/p>\n Throughout the years RT has created multiple spin-offs tailored specifically for social media propagation, where entertainment content comes spiced up with the \u201cRussian perspective\u201d. Hidden behind the smokescreen of multiple offshoots RT tailors and targets messages to diverse audiences. RT and its satellite outlets have also gone at lengths to\u00a0disguise their connections<\/a>\u00a0with each other and with the\u00a0Russian state<\/a>.<\/p>\n The EU sanctions against RT and Sputnik are\u00a0exceptional, targeted and temporary<\/strong>\u00a0measures, taken in a very specific, unprecedented context \u2013 Russia\u2019s military aggression against Ukraine \u2013 but the Kremlin\u2019s mouthpieces have run into trouble before.<\/p>\n In Ukraine, RT has been\u00a0banned since 2014(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and it has never managed to obtain a broadcasting licence in Germany. In 2019\u00a0the German Association of Journalists(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0warned the state media authorities, that,\u00a0\u201cRussia Today is not an information medium for us, but a propaganda instrument of the Kremlin.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>RT DE tried to side-step Germany\u2019s rules and obtain a broadcasting licence in\u00a0Luxembourg(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>, but the regulators in Luxembourg also rejected the request. After RT DE tried to go on air in Germany at the end of 2021 without a valid broadcasting licence, its\u00a0broadcast was suspended(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0by the German Commission on Licencing and Supervision.<\/p>\n RT has been banned in\u00a0Latvia(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Lithuania(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Estonia(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>. In the US, RT had to register as a\u00a0foreign agent(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>. RT\u2019s output had been found \u201cmaterially misleading<\/a>\u201d by UK media regulator Ofcom, which in 2019 imposed a\u00a0fine of \u00a3200,000<\/a>. In February, 2022, Ofcom launched\u00a015 new investigations into the impartiality(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of RT\u2019s news channel programming. The\u00a0French broadcasting regulator<\/a>\u00a0has also issued warnings to RT.<\/p>\n RT and Sputnik continue to cultivate and amplify disinformation narratives denigrating Ukraine, in attempts to justify and mobilise support for Putin\u2019s war. And they have been doing it for years \u2013 see some examples from\u00a02016<\/a>,\u00a02017<\/a>,\u00a02018,<\/a>\u00a02019,\u00a0<\/a>2020<\/a>,\u00a02021<\/a>,\u00a02022<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n In 2021 RT\u2019s editor in chief,\u00a0Margarita Simonyan<\/a>\u00a0attended a conference in Donetsk, where she\u00a0called(opens in a new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on \u201cMother Russia to bring Donbas home,\u201d literally calling for the violation of Ukraine\u2019s territorial integrity.<\/p>\n Just weeks before Putin\u2019s orders to start the war, RT\u00a0riled up its audiences<\/a>\u00a0by stating that \u201cUkrainians wanted Russian blood.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Russian missiles are falling on Ukrainian cities, both RT and Sputnik continue to disinform and obfuscate the true nature and extent of Putin\u2019s war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n7 things you need to know about RT & Sputnik:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/euvsdisinfo.eu\/uploads\/2022\/03\/FINAL-RT-Sputnik-6-things-3.png\")
<\/p>\n1. RT and Sputnik are not media organizations, but the Kremlin\u2019s weapons of deception.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. RT and Sputnik are not objective, nor do they strive to be.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
3. RT employs people with background in journalism, but does NOT follow international journalistic standards.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
4. RT and Sputnik are a part of a larger disinformation ecosystem.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
5. The real impact of RT lies in online and social media.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
6. RT has run into trouble before.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
7. RT and Sputnik have been instrumental in bringing forward and supporting Russia\u2019s military aggression against Ukraine.<\/strong><\/h3>\n