RT, the Kremlin's disinformation machine banned by Europe

Inna Afinogenova, deputy director of the Russian Today (RT) website in Spanish, said last December 1 on her program ¡Aí les va! : “January will come, then February and March, 2022 will end and surely in the media will continue to read that the invasion is imminent. The poster for 'today is not trustful, tomorrow' in political version. Those who warn again and again of an imminence that never comes, do so not out of ignorance, but because they have it perfectly calculated.”

At that time, Western media warned, citing official sources from the European Union and the United States, that Russia was preparing an attack on Ukraine. At the end of the year Russian troops settled on the border between the two countries and from the Kremlin it was said that these were military maneuvers and from the West that they were preparations for an invasion.

History of great hysteria: Imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine? was the title of a report broadcast on RT's El Zoom program on February 16. Then, the presenter, Javier Rodríguez Carrasco, warned of the risk of selling “tremendous headlines” when it was not a game but “something as serious and terrible as war is”. The host of RT's El Zoom added that “those who play with war should have their faces shamed and if anyone had any dignity they would abandon their jobs or ask for forgiveness.”

On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine and marked the beginning of a war that has already lasted more than a month, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths and the displacement of more than four million people. A war that keeps Europe and the rest of the world on their toes and on the brink of World War III.

RT and Sputnik, Russian media controlled by the Kremlin, are no longer accessible in Europe. All previous quotes could be easily found, heard and compared on the Internet until a little over a month ago.

On February 27, after five o'clock in the afternoon in Europe, the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, announced: “We will ban the Kremlin's communication machines in the EU. State media Russia Today and Sputnik, and their branches, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin's war. We are implementing measures to ban toxic and harmful misinformation in Europe.”

The closure occurred on February 2. The EU then argued: “Sputnik and Russia Today are under the permanent control, direct or indirect, of the authorities of the Russian Federation and are essential and decisive in boosting and supporting military aggression against Ukraine and for the destabilization of its neighbouring countries.”

He added: “The Russian Federation has embarked on a systematic and international campaign of misinformation, manipulation of information and distortion of facts in order to intensify its strategy of destabilizing its neighbouring countries, the EU and its Member States.”

The decision of the European Council is directly applicable.

In theory, RT and Sputnik are no longer accessible from Europe. In theory, because, as lawyer and journalist Pablo Romero, an expert in information about technology, explains, “the Commission has had to go social network by social network requiring the territorial blocking of certain URLs [web address]. What is happening is that it is very difficult to prevent diffusion in this way. In fact, I myself have seen that RT can post its information from Latin America and that it can be accessed from Spain in a thousand and one ways: a VPN in a third country, a mirror, etc.”

How do RT and Sputnik work? How do they spread their fake news? Firstly, some of the experts consulted question the prohibition applied by the EU, since, they say, the right to information must prevail. Secondly, they emphasize that Western media, subject to the scrutiny of expert verification panels, also spread misinformation.

Carlos Elias, professor of Journalism at the Carlos III University of Madrid and holder of the Jean Monnet Chair EU, Disinformation & Fake News explains to Infobae how and why the information process takes place. “RT and Sputnik disseminate their information through their websites. All the people who consume it and other media that serve as speakers propagate it. When it hits Social Media, big IT teams create bots that feed it.”

The key is to know why that information is consumed. Elias is, in addition to being a journalist, a chemist, a scientific background that makes him an optimal analyst of these processes that he has been analyzing for years. “The human brain is not made for the truth. The human brain is made to optimize energy. What we call 'confirmation bias' is to consume that information that confirms what we think.”

Thus, if someone is against vaccines, they will discard five top-level scientific articles that tell them the opposite of what they think and will validate any information that confirms what they think regardless of the source, they give as an example. “If RT and Sputnik say that there is no war in Ukraine and that they are actually operations to prevent Russia from being attacked, people will believe it” for that reason. And from his scientific knowledge, he explains that “there are neurotransmitters that are activated, similar to those of sexual pleasure, when we confirm what we believe”, while others, more linked to pain, “are activated when information contradicts our ideas”.

Infobae has contacted former RT workers. These sources are asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. There is another reason: in RT they are forced to sign a confidentiality contract which, in the event of breaking it, can result in a fine of more than five million rubles, around 46,157 euros at the current exchange rate.

This confidentiality agreement lasts over time. According to documents published by some media (The Moscow Times, Meduza, Znak), workers must remain silent not only while they are in the middle, but for 20 years once they have abandoned it.

One of the keys to these media is that they offer good working conditions, good contracts, that they have optimal means to carry out their work. One of the sources consulted explains that its chiefs have always been “Russians close to the Government. In recent months, the objective of information has changed: there is no talk of war in Ukraine, but of genocide in the Donbas. Now you can't, but it's easy to see on the page how RT's management team, the top, changes on a regular basis.”

Today, says a former RT worker, “the most sensitive tasks are being taken on by the Russians. The information is official, all Russian media today give the same approach. In fact, there is talk of nuclear weapons and chemical weapons in the hands of Ukrainians.”

A journalist who is familiar with the reality experienced in Russia in recent months has explained how the messages sent by these media always went in the same direction: the genocide in Donbas, the presence of Nazis in Ukraine, the risk that Russia suffers and the historical ties that make Russia and Ukraine one country.

Not a few journalists linked to this Russian media resigned shortly after the invasion. Two examples.

“I'm sorry I left RT now. I want to thank everyone on the channel for giving me the opportunity to broadcast globally on topics that I am passionate about. Good luck to all my former colleagues,” journalist Shadia Edwards-Dashti wrote on her Twitter account. She worked for RT from London. It was 10:58 in the morning of February 24 when he announced his resignation. It was barely five hours since the invasion.

At 21:27 on February 24, the Moscow-based RT journalist Jonny Tickle announced on Twitter that he was leaving RT: “In the light of recent events, today I resigned from RT with immediate effect.”

One of the most prestigious teams in the field of information verification tasks in Spain is that of Maldita, founded by Julio Montes and Clara Jiménez Cruz almost a decade ago. The head of Maldita's educational and media literacy strategy, Stéphane M. Grueso, explains in a simple and generic way how misinformation is born “in closed groups”, which then transfers it to “social networks” and through them reaches “conventional media”.

In the case of RT and Sputnik, he explains, the point is that “they are already conventional media.” Thus, they disseminate their fake news - as the expert Carmela Ríos explained to Infobae, not all content is misinformation and high quality programs are generated - directly.

Grueso speaks from prudence. He acknowledges that he has not elaborated on these two specific cases and that he does not dare to say that these are means of disinformation in an exhaustive manner. Damn did you analyze RT's information in the weeks leading up to the invasion.

The head of Maldita's educational and media literacy strategy recalls that in Latin America, with special mention of Brazil, RT is very strong. It coincides on this point with what Pablo Romero has contributed.

Carlos Elias explains that the key to the media of disinformation lies in the narrative. “One of the differences between the West and Russia, China or Arab cultures is enormous, because for us the fact is fundamental, but for them it is not. For us, since Thucydides and the war between Sparta and Athens, the importance lies in the fact, not in the narrative. That doesn't work in other cultures.” Thus, there are societies that are more vulnerable to the story because they are not interested in the fact, but rather what they tell it.

Back in 2017, in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that “Russia Today and [sister publication] Sputnik did not behave like media organizations and journalists.” In his view, the Russian state-funded media had acted as “agencies of influence and propaganda, lying propaganda, no more or less” during his presidential campaign l.

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