"[11] Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, said that Rossiya Segodnya was being created in order to increase the cost efficiency in Russian state media.

However, a report by the BBC states that it "seems likely [...] that [Rossiya Segodnya] will complement the work of the state-funded foreign-language TV station, RT.

[20] The organisation is headed by Dmitry Kiselyov, a pro-Putin[5] news presenter on the domestic Russia-1 television channel, who has gained significant controversy in the Western media with his remarks claiming foreign conspiracies against Russia and verbally abusing homosexuals.

He has stated that a homosexual person's organs are unworthy of being transplanted to a heterosexual, and that gay men should be prohibited from donating blood or sperm.

[4] On 1 December 2014, Ukrainian journalist Oleksandr Chalenko accused Rossiya Segodnya of censorship after an interview with the former Defense Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Igor Strelkov.