Countries should treat the activities of Russian state broadcaster RT as they do covert intelligence operations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday as he unveiled new sanctions aimed at alleged Russian overseas influence campaigns.
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The United States last week filed money-laundering charges against two employees of RT and imposed sanctions on Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan over what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 US election.
Blinken told reporters at the US State Department that Russian media entities were “functioning like a de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus”. RT had moved beyond being a media outlet to possess cyber capabilities and conduct covert information and influence operations overseas as well, he said, citing new information, much of which he said came from RT employees.
“Today, we’re announcing that these Kremlin-backed media outlets are not only playing this covert influence role to undermine democracy in the United States, but also to meddle in the sovereign affairs of countries around the world,” Blinken said.
The war in Ukraine has sunk US-Russian relations to new lows since President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion in 2022 and the Biden administration responded by arming Kyiv and rallying a broad international sanctions campaign against Moscow.