The United States and some of its allies have launched a global campaign to undercut efforts by RT and other Russian state-backed media outlets, accusing them of operating on behalf of the Kremlin’s intelligence agencies.
The State Department on Friday announced sanctions against two people and three entities, including RT’s Moscow-based parent company, saying new intelligence leaves no doubt that they are no longer engaged in providing anything that resembles news and information.
RT’s parent company and its subsidiaries “are no longer merely fire hoses of Russian government propaganda and disinformation,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at the State Department.
“They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracy, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus,” he said, adding the Russian operations also seek to “meddle in the sovereign affairs of countries around the world.”
Blinken and other U.S. officials declined to share details about the new intelligence, saying only that some of it comes from RT employees, and that it shows how the Russian-controlled television network is playing a key role in running cyber operations and even acquiring lethal weapons for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
RT quickly ridiculed the U.S. accusations both on social media and in a response to VOA.
“RT: *Lives rent free in the State Department head*,” the outlet posted on X. “We’re running out of popcorn, but we’ll be here live, laughing hard...”
In response to a query from VOA, RT pointed to comments by editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan on her Telegram channel.
"American intelligence services have uncovered that we are helping the front lines,” Simonyan wrote, according to a translation from Russian. “We’ve been doing this openly, you idiots. Should I send you a list of what we've bought and sent? We regularly publish this, just so you know."
The Russian Embassy in Washington has not yet responded to a request from VOA for comment.
U.S. officials, though, said comments like the ones from RT’s Simonyan only give more weight to the allegations.
“They've admitted it,” said James Rubin, the special envoy for the State Department's Global Engagement Center. “They have said they're operating under direct instruction of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. That's what they say they're doing.”
And the U.S. says the intelligence shows those Kremlin-assigned responsibilities go far beyond what could be considered normal broadcast operations, including oversight of a crowdsourcing campaign to provide Russian troops in Ukraine with sniper rifles, body armor, drones, night vision equipment and other weaponry.
“That's not what a TV station normally does. That's what ... that's what a military entity does,” Rubin said. RT is “a fully fledged member of the intelligence apparatus and operation of the Russian government on the war in Ukraine.”
The U.S. intelligence also points to Kremlin-directed RT operations in Argentina, Germany and the South Caucasus – some linked to a Russian military intelligence cyber team that has been embedded within the company.
U.S. officials also said evidence shows RT is “almost certainly” coordinating with traditional Russian intelligence services to meddle in next month’s presidential elections in Moldova.
“RT is going to be used to try to manipulate an election and, if they don't win the election, manipulate a crowd to try to generate violence for the possibility of overthrowing [the government],” Rubin said.
U.S. officials also called out RT for covert influence operations in Latin America and Africa that have had serious consequences.
“One of the reasons why so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be — given that Russia has invaded Ukraine and violated rule number one of the international system — is because of the broad scope and reach of RT,” Rubin said.
The State Department said Friday that it had instructed its diplomats to share evidence about RT’s efforts with countries around the world.
“We urge every ally, every partner, to start by treating RT’s activities as they do other intelligence activities by Russia within their borders,” Blinken said.
Friday’s sanctions came a little more than a week after the U.S. acted against what it described as two Russian plots, one of them involving RT, aimed at undermining the U.S. presidential elections in November.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the takedown of 32 fake websites designed by Russia to mimic legitimate news sites, to bombard U.S. voters with propaganda aimed at building support for Russia in its war against Ukraine and bolstering support for Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump.
The U.S. also unsealed indictments against two RT employees, accusing them of funneling nearly $10 million to a U.S. company in Tennessee to promote and distribute English-language material favorable to the Russian government.
What impact all these actions will have on Russia and RT, however, remains to be seen.
“I don't think there's any evidence that deterrence is working in this space,” said Margaret Talev, who directs the Syracuse University Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship in Washington.
“These efforts are getting much more sophisticated,” she told VOA, adding that Russian influence operations have become adept at seeding the social media environment and letting audiences do the work.
“One of the biggest drivers of the spread of misinformation and disinformation is sharing by people who aren't trying to do anything wrong,” Talev said. “They're either amused by something or horrified by something that comes into their feed, and they hit 'share.' And now someone spread it to you, and you're spreading it to someone else.”
