State Department Sanctions Russia State Media Outlet Over Alleged Covert Influence

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the University of Marylands A. James Clark School of Engineering, in College Park, Md., on Aug. 9, 2021. Patrick Semansky/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The U.S. State Department announced sanctions against media outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) and several affiliates on Sept. 13, citing accusations of global covert influence.

Drawing on intel from RT employees, “We now know that RT moved beyond being simply a media outlet and has been an entity with cyber capabilities,” a statement from the State Department said.

“As a part of RT’s expanded capabilities, in Spring 2023, the Russian government embedded within RT an entity with cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence.”

The department said that the media groups aim to influence elections and public opinion on several continents, including Africa, Europe, and North and South America.

The State Department also revealed that it expects Russia to coordinate with RT to skew the October election in Moldova, by stirring up civil unrest. RT actors “coordinated with the Kremlin to attempt to foment unrest in Moldova, likely with the specific aim of causing protests to turn violent,” the statement said.

Likewise, it alleges the media outlet is being used by Russia to “destabilize the government of Argentina and escalate tensions between Argentina and its neighbors.”

RT responded to the announcement on X saying, “It turns out we not only meddle in US elections, but in Moldovan elections too! OMG, didn’t realise we were SO powerful.”

The sanctions follow last week’s Department of Justice indictment of two RT employees and the seizure of 32 websites suspected of attempting to influence U.S. elections. That scheme allegedly involved channeling $10 million to a Tennessee company supporting right-wing social media influencers like Tim Pool and Dave Rubin.

Friday’s State Department announcement names state-owned broadcast agency Rossiya Segodnya, its director general Dmitry Konstantinovich Kiselev, and nonprofit TV-Novosti, which is associated with Rossiya Segodnya and controls RT. It also accuses Russian firm Ano Evraziya and its general director Nelli Alekseyevna Parutenko of a vote-purchasing scheme in Moldova.

Further, the announcement accuses RT of being a proxy weapons-purchaser for Russia through crowdfunding.

“Military equipment and supplies, to include sniper rifles, suppressors ... imported in small orders to avoid unwanted scrutiny. Some of this equipment has been sourced from the People’s Republic of China,” the State Department alleges.

Officials say RT is secretly running online platforms around the world, including the German-based English platform Red (formerly Redfish), and African Stream, whose website says it gives “a voice to all Africans both at home and abroad.”

“In reality, the only voice it gives is to Kremlin propagandists,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech on Friday. 

“I’ve instructed U.S. diplomats around the world to share the evidence that we’ve gathered on RT’s expanded capabilities and the ways it’s being used to target individual countries and the information ecosystem that we share.”

The recent scrutiny is not a first for RT. In 2022, Google blocked RT from Youtube ad monetization, along with several other Russian channels. That same year, Canadian, British and EU regulators was took RT off the airwaves.