Cutting the Kremlin's Information Claws: How the World Is Curbing Russian Propaganda

"Radio Thousand Hills is one of the most popular Rwandan mass media whose main task, according to Kabuga himself, was to popularize and protect the radical ideology of "Hutu Power". Because it openly identified the Tutsi as the hideous and dangerous enemies of the Hutu, Radio Thousand Hills was often vilified Tutsi, for example, calling them "cockroaches".

Over time, the level of hatred began to rise, and open calls for the killing of Tutsis appeared on the airwaves, prompting the Hutu fighting forces to move from words to action.

According to different sources, in just 100 days in a country of six million inhabitants, from 500,000 to one million people were killed.

Although it is difficult to compare the genocide in Rwanda and the war in Ukraine, the story of Felicien Kabuga could very soon benefit Ukraine as well. Rwanda's Propaganda Tribunal is one of the few examples where media workers have been prosecuted for inciting violence (although Kabuga himself is still awaiting a court verdict).

For Ukrainians who have suffered from the Russian propaganda machine, a bigger version of Thousand Hills Radio, this is a good example of how Russian propagandists can be punished.

For now, at least until the end of hostilities, the tribunal remains a ghostly prospect for Russian propagandists. However, there is a way to at least partially reduce the damage from their actions - to introduce sanctions against the propagandists themselves, as well as against TV channels and other media that broadcast disinformation.

OPORA learned about the sanctions imposed on Russian media by various countries around the world and why it is important to continue lobbying for their introduction.

In this column, we will talk about the general trends of sanctions against Russian propaganda and try to understand whether it is really more difficult for the Kremlin to spread its narratives in the world.

We will find out who was on the sanctions list and why, and how to bring real Russian propagandists to justice as quickly and efficiently as possible.

 

What are sanctions and why are they necessary?

The first thing to understand when it comes to sanctions against Russian propaganda is the scale of its spread. The propagandists themselves say that the signal of Russia Today (the main international Russian media) is "broadcast by 22 satellites and more than 230 operators, which enables about 700 million people to watch the channel in more than 100 countries".

 

These indicators, obviously, do not correspond to the actual audience of the channel. However, the real situation with the expansion of Russian channels is also quite threatening.

According to "Detektor medija" data, in March 2022, about twenty Russian non-coded TV channels were available on open satellites in the world. Although the French regulator recently ordered satellite company Eutelsat to stop broadcasting some Russian TV channels, Russia still has many international and domestic satellites it can use.

In addition, dozens of Russian channels are included in packages sold by pay TV providers. They are also available in hotels in most countries of the world.

Before the full-scale invasion began, Russian television could be seen and heard on almost every continent in at least five different languages.

Researchers have noticed for a long time that Russian television abroad not only promotes fake, but also creates a parallel reality for users who are looking for an alternative to messages from the "mainstream media".

One of the most vivid examples can be the activities of RT and Sputnik during the coronavirus pandemic. At that time, as the journalists of Radio Sloboda learned, Russia Today broadcast radically different messages to its Russian audience and to the audience of other countries.

If RT spoke "in Russian" about the importance of vaccination, the mask regime and social distance, RT in other languages conveys opposite messages: they say that vaccination will not protect you from the virus, and masks are generally dangerous to health.

Using similar methods, Russian propaganda influences political and social life in other countries, harms their stability and even directly interferes in political processes (such as, for example, during the 2016 US presidential elections).

After the start of the war in Ukraine, these trends only intensified. The Russian mass media, which always exclusively defend the interests of Russia, tried to influence the public opinion of Western countries, so that they would stop supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees.

In order to reduce the influence of the Russian media, the countries of the world introduce sanctions - restrictions with the help of which they try to convince Russia to change its policy and stop the war in Ukraine. In the information sphere, sanctions are introduced both against media holdings and TV channels, as well as against individual propagandists.

If sanctions are applied against propagandists like Margarita Simonjan or Dima Bilan, it mostly means that such people:

• they cannot enter the territory of the country that imposed sanctions on them;

• they cannot use their own money or real estate they own in the country that has applied sanctions (their assets are frozen);

• cannot receive any financial resources from the country that imposed sanctions on them.

 

If sanctions are applied to an organization (for example, the National Media Group, which owns most of the entertainment TV channels in the Russian Federation), then the restrictions include banning their financing and freezing their assets.

 

In addition, if we are talking about the media (Russia Today, Sputnik, Rossiya RTR/RTR Planeta, etc.), here the states take away all licenses and distribution contracts necessary for their broadcasting. Because of this, broadcasting is simply stopped - whether via cable, satellite or digital networks and via platforms, websites and mobile applications. In case of EU sanctions, the ban also applies to the rebroadcasting of Russian channels to countries outside the EU. All sanctioned media are prohibited from buying advertisements.

None of these applied sanctions are an end in themselves or just a sign of friendly support for Ukraine - they are being introduced to achieve a specific goal.

Individual sanctions contribute to increasing the "price" of supporting the war for Russian propagandists. The idea here is quite simple: if Vladimir Solovyov really likes his own villa on Lake Como, he will be less inclined to support the war when he is deprived of the opportunity to visit the estate.

Similarly, the sanctions should encourage other, lesser-known propagandists who have not yet been subject to restrictions to stop publicly supporting the Russian invasion.

Instead, sanctions against media holdings and mass media are designed to limit access to propaganda by the populations of different countries. In this way, countries try to protect themselves from Russian disinformation, which can be quite insidious and, unfortunately, effective.

 

Global South versus Global North

 

Now that we have understood why sanctions are necessary and what exactly they ensure, it is worth looking at the real situation with the introduction of such restrictions in the world.

If we talk about the economic sanctions introduced by the Western countries, then most of the countries of the world really try to comply with them - other countries are wary of the so-called "secondary sanctions", because they help Russia to bypass the restrictions. But this logic is much more difficult to extend to media corporations and individual Russian propagandists.

 

Each country separately imposes individual sanctions, but attempts to force a country to ban the broadcasting of Russia Today or Sputnik can be considered interference in internal politics and a violation of that country's sovereignty.

 

As a result, only 50 countries in the world today publicly announced sanctions against Russian media and propagandists. These are mainly the countries of the European Union and the G7, their close allies or candidates for EU membership (Gibraltar, Iceland, etc.) and Ukraine itself.

Instead of sanctions, nearly 150 countries around the world either limited the spread of Russian propaganda or did not impose sanctions at all.

Some of these countries are close allies of the Russian Federation: for example, in Venezuela, which openly supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Actualidad RT is one of the most popular TV channels watched by millions of viewers.

 

Some other countries, especially in Africa, have not only not reduced the presence of Russia on their screens and radio waves, but are also creating new platforms for the spread of Russian propaganda. So, for example, the opening of a new office of Russia Today in South Africa is being prepared, which will shift the public opinion of the African continent towards Russia.

Taking into account the fact that, for example, African countries have a total of about 28 percent of votes in the UN, such a change may not be in Ukraine's favor at all.

At the same time, some countries are in no hurry to impose sanctions on Russian media or propagandists, because they do not want to be added to the Russian "list of enemy countries".

For example, Nigeria, a strong supporter of Ukraine, imports most of the wheat it needs from Russia, and therefore tries not to apply any restrictions against it.

In the same way, Kazakhstan is hampered by its close ties with Russia. In the spring and autumn of 2022, the television operators of this country tried to interrupt the broadcasting of a number of Russian channels. However, as television in Kazakhstan is broadcast through the equipment of Russian operators, after "consultations" with the leaders of Moscow companies, the Kazakh "daughters" gave up on this idea.

 

How the sanction lists were developed

 

In January 2023, 931 propagandists and 206 media or other disinformation organizations are under sanctions from at least one of the 50 countries that have restricted Russian propaganda.

It turned out that the main trigger for imposing sanctions was a full-scale invasion.

Thus, by February 24, 2022, only 14.4 percent of all sanctions introduced against Russian propagandists were applied. Some of them were imposed in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, which began in 2014. Others related to propagandists or technical personnel directly related to Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election (this concerns employees of the Internet Research Agency under the leadership of Yevgeny Prigozhin).

Although some of the brightest representatives of Russian propaganda (for example, Dmitry Kiselyov) fell under these restrictions, the first sanctions lists were inconsistent between different countries and as a result did not have sufficient strength and effectiveness.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many countries realized that Japan, Australia and Canada have no place not only for Vladimir Putin himself, but also for other propagandists who justified the Russian invasion to domestic and foreign audiences.

 

As a result, not only has the number of sanctions increased drastically (819 propagandists have been subject to restrictions), but the consistency of work between different countries has also become noticeable – the sanctions lists of the EU, USA, Canada and other countries mostly coincide.

In addition, it is hard not to notice that after February 24, Ukraine became a real leader in the application of sanctions: 790 Russian propagandists were subjected to restrictions this year. The Ukrainian sanctions also show a change in the focus of the restrictions. If previously the main attention was paid mainly to media persons like Vladimir Solovyov, now Russian bloggers, "warriors" and singers who publicly supported the Russian war in Ukraine, as well as people who finance or manage the Russian propaganda machine, are under attack.

In 2014, it was quite difficult to imagine a situation in which the European regulator undertakes to ban the broadcasting of a number of Russian TV channels. Instead, the European Union and the US have tried to counter Russian propaganda in a different way, through public education, exposing Russian fakes or teaching media literacy in schools. So, although by 2022 Western countries and Ukraine have imposed sanctions against 81 media and organizations that promote the spread of Russian propaganda, these attempts to reduce Russia's influence were not very coordinated and effective.

After February 24, around 140 more organizations were targeted by sanctions. However, something else is more important here: the West and Ukraine began to act more concertedly and harshly, prohibiting the physical spread of Russian propaganda - through the ban on broadcasting TV channels, as well as due to pressure on Russian state institutions and financial institutions, which contributed to the spread of propaganda by providing it with huge budget.

Despite the fact that the year 2022 brought a real step forward in opposing Russian propaganda, there is still a lot of work ahead of us. First, we should not forget that only a quarter of the world's countries today have even minimal sanctions for Russian propaganda.

The support of the other 150 countries of the world is of key importance for Ukraine. This requires concrete steps not only by the Ukrainian authorities and not only in matters of encouraging these governments to impose sanctions against Russian propaganda. Instead, it is possible to take a slightly different path - to promote pro-Ukrainian attitudes in these countries.

The niche of the English language, in which most of the Ukrainian media that enter the international market exist today, is very important for us. However, this part of the media space is already quite friendly. Instead, the creation of pro-Ukrainian media in Arabic, Swahili or Hindi is now a more urgent (though more difficult to implement) need.

Second, even those countries that have introduced restrictions are not necessarily the most protected. Undoubtedly, stopping the broadcasting of Russian TV channels and blocking access to Russian state media websites is a great victory. However, Russia has learned to circumvent sanctions in the media space as well as in other areas.

Today, Russian propaganda unfolds in the online space, it can be seen in the feed of any social network or through the online transmission and website of the propaganda media.

Although the websites of RT and Sputnik are blocked in the EU, Russia has created dozens of so-called mirrors - websites with slightly different names that actually duplicate the content of banned media. Likewise, although a number of Russian state media have disappeared from Facebook and Instagram in Europe, media pages in Arab countries and Latin America are still active.

 

Another problem is channels like Telegram, Viber or WhatsApp, where Russian state media generally feel quite free and publish content to an unlimited audience in dozens of different languages.

Thus, today, in addition to countries that are increasingly ready to impose sanctions on Russian propagandists and media, parties in the process should also become large social media platforms, each of which has its own policy and is often not ready for direct contact with governments.

Finally, we should not forget the need for further sanctions against Russian propagandists and media in other countries and Ukraine.

After all, sanctions have another important value: they legally record the crimes committed by the Russian propaganda machine against the Ukrainian people, inciting hostility and calling on the Russians to destroy Ukrainians.

Who knows, maybe these sanctions will one day make it easier for us to prepare for the international tribunal for propagandists and help us put Olga Skabejeva and Anton Krasovski on the same bench where Felisijen Kabuga is currently sitting.