Sputnik (news agency)

• 1. Introduction

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  Sputnik is a Russian state-owned news agency and radio broadcast service that first went on air on the 10th of November 2014. In 2016, Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times explained what he called the deeper purpose behind such operations. He wrote that dezinformatsiya aims to undermine "the official version of events, even the very idea that there is a true version of events." The goal, he added, is what he called policy paralysis. The name Sputnik comes from the Russian word спутник, meaning satellite. Academics and journalists have repeatedly described the network as a propaganda outlet, a label the Russian government rejects entirely.

  So how did a broadcaster named for humanity's first artificial satellite end up rebranding itself, reorganizing twice, and reaching newsrooms on nearly every continent? What happens inside its bureaus when reporters in Washington start asking their own editors uncomfortable questions? And what finally pushes a whole continent to switch a broadcaster off?

• 2. A New Name For An Old Voice

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  On the 9th of December 2013, Russia's international news agency RIA Novosti ceased to exist under that name, reorganized by presidential order into Rossiya Segodnya. Dmitry Kiselev, an anchorman on the Russia-1 channel, was named the reorganized agency's first president that same day. He soon announced that Margarita Simonyan would serve as editor-in-chief.

  Simonyan told The New York Times in 2017 why she picked Sputnik as the new name. "I thought that's the only Russian word that has a positive connotation, and the whole world knows it," she said. That new agency, Rossiya Segodnya, is funded through RT, itself owned and operated by the Russian government.

  Sputnik's lineage reaches back to 1929, when Radio Moscow began broadcasting as the Soviet Union's official international station. It reached listeners across the country, Eastern Europe and Cuba. That service ran until 1993, when Voice of Russia replaced it alongside the foreign-language operations of RIA Novosti. Two weeks before Sputnik's own launch, the Russian government had already put RT UK on the air.

  Editor-in-chief Dmitry Kiselyov said Sputnik aimed to reach an audience "tired of aggressive propaganda promoting a unipolar world and who want a different perspective." The station's own slogan, he added, was that it "tells the untold." President Vladimir Putin offered a blunter framing during a 2013 visit to RT's Moscow headquarters. He said the goal behind both Sputnik and RT was to "break the monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon global information streams."

  In April 2017, Sputnik signed a personnel exchange agreement with the Global Times, a tabloid run by the Chinese Communist Party, extending its partnerships beyond Russia's own borders.

• 3. Broadcasting To The World

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  From its headquarters in Moscow, Sputnik runs regional editorial offices in Washington, D.C., Cairo, Beijing, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro. The agency publishes news websites in 31 languages, among them English, Spanish, Arabic and Serbian. It covers global politics and economics for what it calls an international audience.

  Those websites carry more than 800 hours of radio programming each day, backed by a newswire that runs a 24/7 service. Radio Sputnik carries that programming in 30 languages, reaching more than 130 cities across 34 countries. Listeners tune in through FM, DAB, HD Radio, mobile phones and the Internet. A 24-hour English-language feed also reaches North America via the Galaxy-19 satellite.

  Among its on-air voices are Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, who host the weekly economics program Double Down. Eugene Puryear hosts another talk show, By Any Means Necessary, while liberal radio host Thom Hartmann's own program is syndicated on the network daily.

  On the 1st of August 2025, Radio Sputnik expanded into Brazil, going on air in Rio de Janeiro at 80.5 FM.

• 4. Radio Sputnik In America

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  Federal Communications Commission rules dating back to the Communications Act of 1934 block Sputnik from owning an American radio station outright. Because of that ban, American owners of stations carrying its programming must register as foreign agents with the United States Department of Justice.

  Before the 1st of July 2017, Radio Sputnik's predecessor had broadcast in the Washington, D.C. area on WTOP-HD2, at 103.5-HD2, since at least June 2013. In June 2017, Sputnik U.S.'s editor-in-chief said the network had no immediate plans to expand beyond Washington, D.C.

  That same month, Radio Sputnik announced it would sublease Reston, Virginia-licensed translator station W288BS, at 105.5 FM, from Reston Translator, LLC. The signal transmits from the WIAD tower in Bethesda, Maryland, and reaches Washington plus the western suburbs of Northern Virginia. W288BS translates the digital HD3 signal of Urban One's WKYS, at 93.9 FM, for analog broadcast. From November 2017, Radio Sputnik also began broadcasting on AM in Washington, on WZHF, 1390 AM.

  Sputnik distributes its American programming through brokered-time arrangements, working through agent Arnold Ferolito and his company, RM Broadcasting, LLC. That arrangement grew contentious in Kansas City, Missouri, when Sputnik programming began airing on stations KCXL and KOJH starting in January 2020. KOJH's jazz-centered community format made the clash over airtime especially sharp.

  When the independent Echo of Moscow station shut down on the 3rd of March 2022, Radio Sputnik took over its vacated frequencies.

• 5. Shaping The 2016 Race

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  Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul wrote in The Washington Post that Sputnik made its preference for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton clear throughout the 2016 campaign. One fake story circulated by Sputnik claimed that Barack Obama and Clinton had created ISIS, under the headline "Secret File Confirms Trump Claim: Obama, Hillary 'Founded ISIS' to Oust Assad." The site praised Trump for making that claim before his election, and its tweets carried the hashtag #CrookedHillary. Trump later revived another conspiracy theory that Sputnik had promoted, that Google was suppressing negative news about Clinton.

  In October 2016, Sputnik improperly cited a Newsweek article by Kurt Eichenwald, misattributing comments to Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal. Blumenthal had merely quoted Eichenwald in an unverified email released by WikiLeaks, and Sputnik took the story down. It then published a new article denying Kremlin control and attacking both Newsweek and Eichenwald, after the Trump campaign emailed reporters the Sputnik link and asked them to follow up. Bill Moran, the article's author, later sued Newsweek and won, over his claim that Eichenwald had used bribery and threats.

  Forbes later found that Sputnik International fabricated statements by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest during the campaign. On the 7th of December 2016, Sputnik falsely quoted Earnest as saying, "There are a number of things that are to be considered, including some of the financial sanctions that the United States can administer in coordination with our allies. I would definitely not rule that out." Forbes reviewed the same White House briefing and found the word "sanctions" was never used. Russia came up eight times, but only about air raids on rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, Syria.

  Lee Stranahan joined Sputnik News after leaving Breitbart News, and The Washington Post called him "Sputnik's most visible Trump supporter." During Trump's impeachment in early 2020, Stranahan told listeners, "the entire impeachment is a lie."

  The Washington Post also found that many Sputnik hosts doubted Russia had meddled in the 2016 election, contradicting the US intelligence community's own conclusion.

• 6. Voices From Inside

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  Andrew Feinberg had covered the White House for Sputnik since the Trump administration began in January 2017. On the 26th of May 2017, he announced on Twitter that he would no longer report for the agency. He said the people in charge cared more about employing "propagandists" than "real journalists." In one tweet, he explained the agency's no-byline policy: "The truth is they don't want their reporters to have their own reputations, b/c a lie is easier when it doesn't come with a byline."

  He told Erik Wemple of The Washington Post that without bylines and accountability, "you can really print whatever you want." In a statement to the Post, Sputnik accused Feinberg of "false accusations" and said it hoped "the fruits of his rich imagination" would not spawn further conspiracy theories about the network.

  Feinberg later said Sputnik's editors had pushed him to ask White House questions tying the killing of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich to the leak of DNC documents to WikiLeaks. He called the theory baseless, writing that "there was absolutely no factual basis for doing so," and noted that District of Columbia police believed Rich died during a robbery. Feinberg believed the editors wanted to shift blame for the leak away from Russian hackers and onto Rich, and Sputnik went on to publish articles promoting that theory.

  In an interview with CNN's Brian Stelter, Feinberg said Sputnik management had insisted on dictating his questions at White House briefings. He was told to frame the April 2017 Sarin gas attack in Syria as possibly staged: "I was asked to put questions to the White House that framed the issue in such a way that made it seem that the attack didn't happen, that it was staged." Editors wanted him to raise scientist Ted Postol's doubts about Syrian responsibility, though he was not called on that day. Writing in Politico that August, Feinberg concluded that Sputnik's "mission wasn't really to report the news" so much as to "sow doubts" or "hurt the reputation of the United States and its allies."

  John Stanton had served as Sputnik's Pentagon Correspondent for roughly two years when, in April 2018, he published a report describing Sputnik News, Sputnik Radio and RIA Novosti as parts of a larger Russian Information Warfare Operation. His findings grew out of research he conducted on behalf of the US government while still working inside the organization.

  The following month, PBS NewsHour published journalist Elizabeth Flock's account of a week spent listening to Sputnik's reports, which she said "seemed intended to polarize" and "to distract and confuse." Visiting the station left her with, in her words, "a stranger picture than I anticipated, one in which I began to understand how persuasive disinformation could be." Stanton told her the network would "mix real with unreal, use dubious sources," calling the task of pinning down the problem "like pushing a wet noodle."

  Foreign Policy magazine later described Sputnik as a slick, internet-savvy outlet that "remixes President Vladimir Putin's brand of revanchist nationalism for an international audience... beating a predictable drum of anti-Western rhetoric." In January 2022, the US State Department's Global Engagement Center published a report titled "Kremlin-Funded Media: RT and Sputnik's Role in Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem." Its case studies covered false narratives justifying Russian military buildup on Ukraine's border, a buildup that within weeks would turn into war.

• 7. A Global Information War

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  Ben Nimmo, writing for the Center for European Policy Analysis, found that Sputnik's eastern European invitations concentrated on a select group of politicians. Those included Tatjana Ždanoka in Latvia, known for pro-Russian views, and Janusz Korwin-Mikke in Poland, known for opposing the EU. Both had limited support at home. Korwin-Mikke won just over 3% in Poland's presidential election in May 2015, and Ždanoka is barred from holding public office over her opposition to Latvia's independence from Russia. Sputnik has also spread a false claim that Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, posed for a selfie with an ISIS suspect.

  Kevin Rothrock, Russia editor for Global Voices, described Sputnik as acting like "a spoiler to try and disrupt or blur information unfriendly to Russia," pointing to coverage of Russian troops in Ukraine. German journalist Michael Thumann called Sputnik part of Russia's "digital information war against the West." Peter Pomerantsev wrote in the London Sunday Times that during Germany's 2017 elections, Sputnik stayed negative or neutral on every party except the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany. Alexander Podrabinek, a Russian journalist who works for Radio France Internationale and Radio Liberty, has accused Sputnik of spreading Russian state propaganda abroad.

  The European Parliament passed a vote urging the EU to counter Russian "information warfare," naming Sputnik and RT alongside groups such as the Islamic State, and flagging Rossotrudnichestvo and the Russkiy Mir Foundation as similar tools. A study by Masaryk University identified Sputnik as one of the main sources of Russian propaganda circulating in the Czech Republic. In August 2016, Sputnik opened its United Kingdom headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland, complete with a radio studio and bureau. By April 2021, The Times reported that Russian sources said the London and Edinburgh offices were closing, with English-language staff consolidating in Washington and Moscow.

  A January 2017 report from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs identified the Swedish-language Sputnik News as a main tool for spreading false information in Sweden. Researchers Martin Kragh and Sebastian Åsberg found the site publicized documents from obscure Swedish and Russian websites that turned out to be forgeries, described the EU as being in "terminal decline," and painted NATO as a dangerous military threat. The Swedish edition ran from April 2015 until it was shut down and pulled from the internet in the spring of 2016.

  In April 2017, Emmanuel Macron's campaign banned both RT and Sputnik from its events, with a spokesperson citing a "systematic desire to issue fake news and false information." France's election commission reprimanded a report claiming pro-Russian candidate François Fillon had retaken the lead, after Sputnik falsely attributed the finding to an opinion poll rather than its real source, the Moscow-based firm Brand Analytics. Weeks after Macron won, at a joint press conference with Putin during his visit to Versailles, Macron accused Sputnik and RT of having "produced slanderous countertruths."

  In June 2019, the fact-checking platform Raskrinkavanje published a 106-page report finding that Sputnik's Serbian-language outlet had infiltrated a disinformation hub in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The EU had already created the East StratCom Task Force in 2015 specifically to combat Russian disinformation campaigns built around RT and Sputnik. During the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Sputnik republished a RIA Novosti article by Petr Akopov claiming Russia had already won the war, framing the invasion as the start of a "new world order" joining Russia, Belarus and Ukraine against the rest of Europe. The piece stayed live on Sputnik's site even after RIA Novosti removed it from its own.

  Sputnik's outlets also spread contradictory theories about the origins of COVID-19. Its Belarusian service called the virus an "Anglo-Saxon" plot against China, while an affiliated outlet in Russian-occupied South Ossetia called it a Western-made weapon. Sputnik's Armenian affiliate insisted the virus was made in a US laboratory, while its Latvian outlet suggested it might have originated in Latvia itself.

  Beyond Europe, Russia used Sputnik and RT Arabic to wage what analysts called "informational warfare" in the Middle East, working to reduce US influence and shore up Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria. When a chemical attack struck Khan Shaykhun in April 2017, Sputnik and RT offered almost no coverage, omitting survivor testimony and the area's long history of massacres and bombings. Afterward, both outlets ran daily reports questioning the attack's cause, citing unnamed "experts" and floating an alternate account blaming the Syrian volunteer group the White Helmets. Journalist Finian Cunningham called the White Helmets "propaganda conduits for al-Qaeda terror groups," a claim that spread across social media alongside other outlets sympathetic to the Syrian government.

• 8. Banned Blocked And Deported

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  In March 2016, Turkish authorities blocked access to Sputnik's online content and denied its bureau chief, Tural Kerimov, entry into the country. The move was widely seen as retaliation for Russian criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's human rights record, and the website was unblocked later that year. In 2018, without explanation, Sputnik shut down its Kurdish-language website; former employees said Turkey had requested the closure as part of its anti-Kurdish, pro-Erdoğan politics.

  In October 2017, Twitter banned RT and Sputnik from advertising on its platform, following a US intelligence report from that January on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the ban a "gross violation" of free speech, warning that "retaliatory measures, naturally, will follow." That November, Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt announced Google would start "deranking" RT and Sputnik stories over "weaponised" content, prompting both outlets to cry censorship.

  In January 2019, Facebook removed 289 pages and 75 accounts it said Sputnik employees used to pose as independent news sites across eastern Europe and beyond. Twitter later attached a "state-affiliated media" label to Sputnik's account, alongside Chinese and other Russian state outlets.

  In July 2019, Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office barred RT and Sputnik from its Global Conference for Media Freedom in London, citing their "active role in spreading disinformation." The Russian Embassy called it "direct politically motivated discrimination." Estonia suspended Sputnik's bank accounts in October 2019 and closed its offices in January 2020, after police warned journalists of possible criminal charges tied to EU sanctions on Dmitry Kiselyov.

  After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced that Sputnik, RT and their subsidiaries would be banned across the European Union. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube blocked Sputnik and RT content for EU users, while Reddit blocked outgoing links to both sites worldwide. The EU regulation making the ban official was published on the 2nd of March, and Microsoft and Apple pulled the Sputnik and RT apps from their stores. YouTube extended its block to the rest of the world on the 11th of March.

  On the 13th of September 2023, Moldova deported Sputnik's bureau chief, Vitaly Denisov, and banned him from the country for ten years. Moldova's General Inspectorate for Migration said his presence "endangers the informational security of our country," and press secretary Daniel Voda described Sputnik as "constantly dealing with informational attacks, lies, propaganda and disinformation." Zakharova called the deportation "ugly" and again promised retaliatory measures. Moldovan officials said they believed Denisov was a Russian colonel and GRU officer.