Putin Launches RT India Spreading “West Versus Rest” Narrative

Vladimir Putin has per­son­al­ly launched RT India, spread­ing the ” West ver­sus rest nar­ra­tive with anti-colo­nial rhetoric. On 9 Decem­ber 2025, The Con­ver­sa­tion report­ed that a new Krem­lin-fund­ed broad­cast­er frames con­tem­po­rary Russ­ian for­eign pol­i­cy as a con­tin­u­a­tion of Sovi­et anti-impe­ri­al­ist engage­ment, accus­ing the “col­lec­tive west” of neo­colo­nial inten­tions while advo­cat­ing for a mul­ti­po­lar “de-west­ern­ised” inter­na­tion­al order. The arti­cle begins:

On a recent vis­it to India, Vladimir Putin per­son­al­ly announced the launch of RT India, a new Krem­lin-fund­ed broad­cast­er. It is part of the estab­lished RT (for­mer­ly Rus­sia Today) net­work. After Rus­si­a’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine, RT lost its license to broad­cast in the UK, was banned in the EU and was forced to close in the US. But the clo­sure of RT’s west­ern broad­cast oper­a­tions did not mark the end for the net­work. It has been using cre­ative tac­tics to reach west­ern audi­ences, includ­ing alleged­ly covert­ly fund­ing Con­ser­v­a­tive influ­encers in the US. As the launch of RT India shows, it has also been reori­ent­ing towards audi­ences fur­ther afield.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/rt-india-how-the-kremlin-is-spreading-its-west-v-the-rest-narrative-to-a-global-audience-271416

Key Points

• RT redi­rect­ed resources from a sta­ble bud­get of 31 bil­lion rubles (approx­i­mate­ly £303 mil­lion in 2025) toward new tar­get audi­ences after a par­tial loss of west­ern mar­kets, with RT Ara­bic launched in 2007, RT en Español in 2009, RT Brasil in Feb­ru­ary 2023, and the @RT_India_news X account cre­at­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2022 before the tele­vi­sion chan­nel launch.
• RT India adver­tis­ing cam­paigns fea­tured bill­boards stat­ing “Why does the west still see India as a third-world coun­try?” and “They think you believe, we believe you think” with images of 10 Down­ing Street and White House, while 2025 launch cam­paign pre­sent­ed RT as “A new voice from an old friend” with X bio stat­ing “Not anti-west­ern … just not western.”
• RT plat­forms pre­sen­ters that the audi­ence knows and trusts, includ­ing Bol­ly­wood star Anu­pam Kher and politi­cian Shashi Tha­roor for Indi­an audi­ences, sim­i­lar to the strat­e­gy using Occu­py’s Abby Mar­tin and William Shat­ner for US audi­ences, ex-SNP leader Alex Salmond and George Gal­loway for UK audiences.
• RT India frames Rus­si­a’s aggres­sion against Ukraine as a defen­sive “spe­cial oper­a­tion” aimed at pro­tect­ing Russ­ian-speak­ing pop­u­la­tions from the “Kiev regime” while fram­ing West­ern sup­port for Ukraine as neo-colo­nial war­mon­ger­ing, tap­ping into ongo­ing social debates about the hor­rors of Euro­pean colo­nial­ism to make mis­lead­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions relatable.

RT and Russian Influence Operations Target Global South Through Covert Networks

RT (for­mer­ly Rus­sia Today) has evolved from a state-fund­ed broad­cast­er into a ful­ly inte­grat­ed com­po­nent of Russ­ian intel­li­gence oper­a­tions, with U.S. offi­cials reveal­ing in Sep­tem­ber 2024 that the Krem­lin embed­ded a cyber-intel­li­gence unit with­in RT focused on glob­al influ­ence oper­a­tions. The net­work oper­ates as a prin­ci­pal chan­nel for export­ing Krem­lin strate­gic nar­ra­tives across Africa, Latin Amer­i­ca, the Mid­dle East, and South­east Asia, fill­ing voids left by retreat­ing West­ern media out­lets. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken stat­ed the out­let pos­sess­es cyber capa­bil­i­ties and engages in covert infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions and mil­i­tary pro­cure­ment, includ­ing admin­is­ter­ing crowd­fund­ing plat­forms that sup­ply sniper rifles, drones, and body armor to Russ­ian forces in Ukraine.

The net­work’s Span­ish-lan­guage sub­sidiary Actu­al­i­dad RT dom­i­nates Latin Amer­i­can infor­ma­tion spaces, main­tain­ing 200 employ­ees with offices in Venezuela, Cuba, and Argenti­na while amass­ing over 18 mil­lion Face­book followers—far exceed­ing its Eng­lish-lan­guage coun­ter­part banned across West­ern coun­tries. The RT Com­paRTe ini­tia­tive has trained over 1,000 jour­nal­ists across at least eight Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries through work­shops cov­er­ing source man­age­ment, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and fact-check­ing imbued with Krem­lin nar­ra­tives. In Africa, RT train­ing pro­grams have taught jour­nal­ists that Ukrain­ian war crimes were “fake news,” with fact-check­ers report­ing that most CVs they receive now list the Rus­sia Today train­ing program.

Beyond overt broad­cast­ing, RT deploys sophis­ti­cat­ed covert oper­a­tions includ­ing secret­ly fund­ing sup­pos­ed­ly inde­pen­dent video blog­gers to pro­mote pro-Krem­lin nar­ra­tives while con­ceal­ing Russ­ian involve­ment. The U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice indict­ed two RT employ­ees for fun­nel­ing near­ly $10 mil­lion to Amer­i­can influ­encers ahead of the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. RT’s influ­ence oper­a­tions con­tributed to Roma­ni­a’s unprece­dent­ed elec­tion annul­ment in Decem­ber 2024, where inves­ti­ga­tions uncov­ered 85,000 cyber­at­tacks against elec­toral infra­struc­ture and mas­sive Tik­Tok manip­u­la­tion that pro­pelled a fringe pro-Moscow can­di­date from under 5 per­cent in polls to a first-round victory.

Exter­nal References:
• Biden Admin­is­tra­tion Unveils Evi­dence of RT’s Key Role in Russ­ian Intel­li­gence Oper­a­tions (CNN)
• Trea­sury Takes Action Against Rus­si­a’s For­eign Malign Influ­ence Oper­a­tions (U.S. Treasury)
• How Rus­si­a’s RT Went from Cable News Clone to Covert Oper­a­tor (NPR)