UPDATE - US Official Claims Russian FSB Uses RT, Sputnik To Advance Foreign Policy In Ukraine

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2022) Russia security services are utilizing the country's media outlets to falsely present Ukraine as an aggressor, a US senior official said during a press briefing.

"We know that Russia's Federal Security Service or FSB directly tasks and influences proxy media outlets to publish content that denigrates Ukraine and falsely depicts it as an aggressor," the official said on Thursday. "Articles that appear on these proxy outlets as a result have made their way not only to official Russian state funded media outlets, like RIA Novosti, RT and Sputnik, but to other outlets as well."

However, the official did not provide evidence to back the allegations but re-asserted the claims as if they were a fact.

"Russian state-owned and state-directed media such as RT and Sputnik play a crucial role in how Russia uses disinformation to advance its foreign policy," the official said.

Later on Thursday, the State Department published a report under the title "RT and Sputnik's Role in Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem," in which the two media outlets are considered to be the key elements in alleged Kremlin's disinformation campaign aiming at influencing viewers' political convictions.

"RT and Sputnik are key state-funded and directed global messengers within this ecosystem, using the guise of conventional international media outlets to provide disinformation and propaganda support for the Kremlin's foreign policy objectives," the report says.

Moreover, the report claims that the Kremlin uses RT and Sputnik to gain political advantage when Russia does not benefit from the truth and is significantly involved in the decision-making process related to staffing and editorial policies.

Russia has dismissed Western allegations that it is preparing to invade Ukraine and has pointed out that NATO's military activity in the region contributes to instability. Moscow has reiterated that it has no intention of attacking any country and viewing the accusations against it as a pretext for deploying more alliance's military equipment close to Russia's borders. Russia has been unequivocal that NATO's expansion eastward is a threat to its national security.

Moreover, Western governments have made it difficult for Russian media outlets to operate on US and EU soil, where they have been subject to administrative and other forms of harassment and also subject to outright hostility of politicians and proxy entities.

In November 2016, the European Parliament adopted a resolution stating the need to counter the Russian media, with Sputnik and RT named as the main threats in the document. A number of Western politicians, including US congressmen, as well as the President of France, accused Sputnik and RT of interfering in the elections in the United States and France without providing any evidence to back their claims. Russian officials have dismissed the claims as unfounded.