Russian state media are banned in Europe, but only formally. Hundreds of Russian media clones continue to function in Europe, mimicking local news sources.
For almost a decade and a half, Russia has been building up its “soft power” abroad through a comprehensive media network. The main organs are Russia Today TV channels and especially the diverse Sputnik portals, active in their respective languages in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and in all key European countries, as well as in the USA, Canada, Japan, South America and Africa.
After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine these news portals were blocked, and the authorities of European countries limited access to sites purveying such content and later made it impossible for companies associated therewith to operate.
But it turns out that all this is only apparent.
Russian propaganda resources are still operating and finding an audience in Europe. Euroradio has analyzed exactly how this happens.
State-run Russian media began to look for workarounds long before the aggression in Ukraine.
For example:
In 2021 Sputnik was blocked in Estonia. And within weeks, the allegedly independent Sputnik Meedia appeared there under the leadership of the same people, with the same design and the same agenda.
This strategy was successfully pursued after an EU decision to block websites in March 2022. On March 5, a domain was registered for an English-language Russia Today mirror. And the Western regulator was not alarmed that the owner in the new registration was ANO “TV-news”, which is a legal entity of RT. Even the email given there is the corporate mail of Russia Today.
In April 2022, a similar clone appeared for RT and Sputnik in German. It was called SNA, or Sputnik News Agency. Here, not only the content, but even the design is the same. And the portal is widely available throughout the EU.
Parallel projects help in the promotion of the German-language RT and Sputnik. In Germany, these are the Anti Spiegel portal with 1.7 million visitors a month and Kontrafunk radio. Officially they have nothing to do with Russia, but many former employees of RT Deutsch work there. And the activists of the far-right party Alternative for Germany, which sympathizes with Russia, is allegedly in charge of everything.
One of the latest broadcasts from Kontrafunk reports that “queer ideology uses homosexuals for political purposes” and discusses all the downsides of European politics.
Many projects are being promoted on social networks. Twitter removed the official accounts associated with RT and Sputnik, but you can find dozens, if not hundreds, of the same type of accounts that duplicate material from the Sputnik or RT and links to their clone sites.
Another example:
In the EU, the Sputnik or RT channels in Telegram are not available, also due to decisions of the EU Council. But other channels have been created and are operating without any restrictions.One of them in German is called “Uncensored”. You can subscribe to the bot to learn about other mirrors and communities if necessary, as well as Russian VPN services.
Russian propagandists are trying to find a replacement for YouTube, where they are actively found and blocked. RT invites viewers to use several platforms available in Europe and the US, such as Odysee video hosting. And there are already loaded a huge number of English-, German- or French-language stories with slanted news about the war in Ukraine or conspiracy theories.
Misdirection
After being blocked in Europe, the Sputnik agency also revealed another important strategy — French and Spanish versions appeared on their sites allegedly focused on Africa and South America.
The first is called Sputnik Africa; the second is ostensibly for South America. But on both you can find disinformation about Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.
The Spanish-language Sputnik receives more than seven million hits on its official website alone, mostly from Mexico and Argentina, but also from Spain, where formally it should have been blocked.
In general, more than half of the visitors have a French-language project just from France – and only 5.18 percent from Burkina Faso.
A few simple manipulations, small changes in name, allow Russian propaganda to maintain a presence on various other platforms. For example, on TikTok, where the official Sputnik accounts were blocked. And everything is still searchable on Google, where huge amounts of money are invested in their advertising and they eventually obtain an audience.
