Kremlin Propaganda Spreads Across the World  

“Over the last three years, the Russian state-backed news channel RT and news  agency and radio Sputnik, have expanded their international presence; between  them, they now broadcast across Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East,  Southeast Asia and Latin America” – write Juliana Gragnani & Maria Korenyuk  in the article “Russia is quietly trying to win over the world beyond the West”  published on the BBC website.

RT has launched free training programs for journalists from Africa, Southeast  Asia, India, and China and has announced plans to open an office in India. In  turn, Sputnik opened an editorial office in Ethiopia in February 2025.

All this coincides with a visible decline in the presence of Western media in  certain regions. Due to budget cuts and shifting foreign policy priorities, some  editorial offices have scaled back operations or withdrawn entirely from parts of  the world.

For example, when the BBC closed its Arabic radio station, Sputnik filled the  gap left by the Brits that same year, launching a 24-hour station in Lebanon.

“Russia is like water: where there are cracks in the cement, it trickles in,” says  Dr. Kathryn Stoner, a political scientist at Stanford University, in the BBC  article.

“[Countries outside the West are] very fertile territory intellectually, culturally,  and ideologically [because of their] residual anti-American, anti-Western, and  anti-imperial sentiments,” emphasises Stephen Hutchings, professor of Russian  studies at the University of Manchester, also quoted by the BBC.

In his opinion, Russian propaganda is also cleverly spread: “its content is  calibrated to cater to specific audiences, even if it means adopting different  ideological stances in different regions.”

Full text: “Russia is quietly trying to win over the world beyond the West” 

compiled by ih