How Russia’s RT went from a cable news clone to covert operator

When Olga Belogolova moved to Washington, DC, in 2010, Russian state-owned broadcaster RT was making a big push in the U.S.

“I remember going to bars in this town and seeing RT on televisions, just on,” Belogolova, who is now director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, recalls.

RT was long known to be government-funded and a source of Russian propaganda. But it claimed to be independent. It hired American journalists, and featured some big names like former CNN host Larry King. The channel’s aesthetic was sleek, modern, and cable news-like. But over the years, as American relations with Russia cooled, skepticism of RT grew.

Now, the U.S. government has accused RT and its parent company, Rossiya Segodnya, of going beyond propaganda, as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to destabilize democracies and erode international support for Ukraine.

“They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference this month.

That includes a scheme to funnel nearly $10 million to pro-Trump American influencers, over which the Justice Department recently indicted two RT employees.

Responding to Blinken’s accusation, an RT statement joked that the organization has been “broadcasting straight out of the KGB headquarters all this time.”

From the war in Georgia to Occupy Wall Street

RT originally launched in 2005 as Russia Today, a round-the-clock English language news channel.

It had a clear mission: to “reflect the Russian position on the main issues of international politics and inform the wider public