Kremlin’s US News Network RT America Shutters in Wake of Ukraine Invasion

RT America, a US cable news channel controlled by the Russian government, is ceasing production and laying off all its employees in a move that appears to be tied to operational struggles exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

DirecTV — RT America’s biggest distributor — and Roku dropped the channel Tuesday, March 1. Misha Solodovnikov, the general manager of RT America’s parent company, announced in a March 3 memo to the channel’s roughly 100 employees in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, that the outlet was shutting down “as a result of unforeseen business interruption events,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Here is the full memo from T&R Productions, the production company behind RT America. pic.twitter.com/TcnpxhfyHj

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 3, 2022

The US Department of Justice required RT America (RT stands for “Russia Today”) to register as a foreign agent in 2017 over its Russian connections. Canada, Australia, and the European Union also banned the content producer, and the UK has conducted at least 15 investigations into the channel’s purported biases. 

“We all stand for freedom of speech, but it cannot be abused to spread war propaganda,” EU representative Věra Jourová tweeted March 3.   

RT America news anchor Elizabeth Wahl resigned on-air in a 2014 broadcast just after Russia annexed Crimea. In a 2014 Politico article titled “I Was Putin’s Pawn,” Wahl outlined her reasons for quitting in dramatic fashion. She listed mass content censorship in favor of political spin and lack of journalistic integrity as her main objections to the channel’s coverage.

A declassified 2017 US Office of the Director of National Intelligence report assessed Russia’s goals using RT America and directly linked the founders of RT America to Russian government officials.

“The Kremlin has committed significant resources to expanding the channel’s reach, particularly its social media footprint,” the report said. “A reliable UK report states that RT recently was the most-watched foreign news channel in the UK. RT America has positioned itself as a domestic US channel and has deliberately sought to obscure any legal ties to the Russian Government.” 

The DNI report points to RT America as a significant contributor to rumors of election insecurity in the US leading up to the 2012 and 2016 elections. The report blamed Russia’s 2016 election controversy partially on the misinformation disseminated by the network. 

“The channel portrayed the US electoral process as undemocratic and featured calls by US protesters for the public to rise up and ‘take this government back,’” the report states.

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