[15][16] It operates pay television and free-to-air channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in Russian, English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Portuguese and Serbian.

[7][17] During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance to Russia.

[90] At the time of RT's founding, RIA Novosti director Svetlana Mironyuk stated: "Unfortunately, at the level of mass consciousness in the West, Russia is associated with three words: communism, snow and poverty", and added "we would like to present a more complete picture of life in our country".

[141][142][6][143] In February 2021, Matt Field from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported that RT had created an account on Gab, a social network known for its far-right userbase, right before the start of former U.S. President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial.

[183] In 2012, Anna Kachkayeva, Dean of Media Communications at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, stated that the two organizations "share the same roof" because they are located in the same building, but in "funding, editorial policy, management and staff, they are two independent organisations whose daily operations are not interconnected in any way".

[39] According to data compiled by Oxford's Rasmus Kleis Nielsen prior to the invasion of Ukraine, RT's "online reach in the U.K., France, and Germany" was "not great on the web, but surprisingly strong on social media, at least in spots".

"[247] RT (and Sputnik) "create the fodder" used by "thousands of fake news propagators" and provide an outlet for material hacked from targets it wishes to harm in the service of Russian (government) interests.

"[254] David Weigel called the show "an in-house attempt at a newsy cult hit" and noted that "her meatiest segments were about government spying, and the Federal Reserve, and America's undeclared wars".

[119] The New York Times journalist Allesandra Stanley wrote that "practically speaking, Mr. Assange is in bed with the Kremlin, but on Tuesday's show he didn't put out" and that he "behaved surprisingly like a standard network interviewer".

[42][58] A 2010 Southern Poverty Law Center report stated that RT extensively covered the "birther" and the "New World Order" conspiracy theories and interviewed militia organizer Jim Stachowiak and white nationalist Jared Taylor.

[275] Such figures as Alex Jones, Jim Marrs, David Ray Griffin, and Webster Tarpley have appeared on RT to advance conspiracy theories about topics such as the September 11 attacks, the Bilderberg group, and the "New World Order".

Many Western countries, in contrast, regard RT not just as a propaganda organ, but as "the slickly produced heart of a broad, often covert disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about democratic institutions and destabilize the West".

"[283] John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus says he appears on RT as well as the U.S.-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, commented "I've been given the opportunity to talk about military expenditures in a way I haven't been given in U.S. outlets".

[306] Journalists at The Daily Beast and The Washington Post have observed that RT employs Tony Gosling, an exponent of long-discredited conspiracy theories concerning the alleged control of the world by Illuminati and the Czarist antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

[96] Masha Karp wrote in Standpoint magazine that contemporary Russian issues "such as the suppression of free speech and peaceful demonstrations, or the economic inefficiency and corrupt judiciary, are either ignored or their significance played down".

[327] In November 2021, a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate described RT as being among "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denied climate change.

[364][365] In November 2017, Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt announced that Google will be "deranking" stories from RT and Sputnik in response to allegations about election meddling by President Putin's government, provoking an accusation of censorship from both outlets.

The Russian Embassy called the decision "direct politically motivated discrimination", while RT responded in a statement: "It takes a particular brand of hypocrisy to advocate for freedom of press while banning inconvenient voices and slandering alternative media.

[371][372] In 2012, Jesse Zwick of The New Republic criticized RT, stating it held that "civilian casualties in Syria are minimal, foreign intervention would be disastrous, and any humanitarian appeals from Western nations are a thin veil for a NATO-backed move to isolate Iran, China, and Russia".

[55] On 4 March 2014, Breaking The Set host Abby Martin, speaking directly to her viewing audience during the show's closing statement, said that even though she works for RT, she is against Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

"[373] When asked about a clip of her interviewing a guest on RT by Brian Stelter, host of CNN's Reliable Sources, Wahl responded, They get these extreme voices on that have this kind of hostile toward the West viewpoints towards the world, very extremist.

[56]The New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof commented on CNN's Piers Morgan Live about Wahl's and Martin's initial actions, saying that he "admire[s] their outspokenness but, you know, at the end of the day, RT is a Russian propaganda arm, and I don't think it's going to matter very much to the geopolitical consequences here".

"[386] The following November, RT was again found in breach of Ofcom's impartiality rules, this time in relation to its coverage of the Ukraine crisis, specifically events leading up to the annexation by Russia of Crimea.

[391] The counter-propaganda strategy subsequently developed by the EastStratCom Task Force, a small group of eight officials, included launching the EU vs Disinformation website with a headline of "don't be deceived, question even more".

"[396] In October 2015, David J. Kramer, senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, suggested that Western countries freeze RT's assets "not because of the odious things it spews" but as part of the Yukos shareholder case.

RT's representatives stated the network "finds it especially difficult to obtain pro-Turkey views for its programming" because of "political tensions between Russia and Turkey following the downing of a Russian military aircraft by Turkish warplanes in November 2015".

[413] German journalist Daniel Lange employed by RT DE left the station in protest against its operation to spy on Alexey Navalny while he was undergoing treatment in a hospital in Germany after being poisoned by FSB.

According to Lange, the assignment had nothing to do with journalism as he was instructed in the first place to test the security of the hospital, describe number of internal checkpoints and his RT leadership clearly indicated collected information will not be used for publication.

[415] In January, the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) published a report titled "Kremlin-Funded Media: RT and Sputnik's Role in Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem."

[417][418][419][420] Frédéric Taddeï quit his role as host of the RT France talk show Interdit d'interdire on 23 February when Russia recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway states immediately preceding the invasion.