Good news for all fans of the Russian world view, the war in Ukraine, the Balkans and Serbia: the television station Rasha Today (RT) launched a multimedia portal in the Serbian language under the name RT Balkan, which, of course, also has a Cyrillic version.
Their stories, they say, "will cover the most current regional and world events from a different perspective." And that's just the beginning: the broadcasting of the RT television program in the Serbian language is planned until 2024.
The only question is, what have they been waiting for until now, when the world is in a global conflict due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the harshest economic sanctions ever have been imposed on Moscow, so while Serbian Putinophiles are jubilant, the country of Serbia will certainly have problems because of it? It seems that before, Serbia was not important enough for this kind of media, critics would say propaganda, project.
They were eagerly awaiting them.
"Probably, nowhere in the world were we expected as much as here." And I want to address the dear Serbs in their own language: Brothers, watch RT," said RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan. She wrote on Twitter: "We launched RT in the Balkans." Because Kosovo is Serbia."
The head of RT Balkan, Jelena Milinčić, said that now the residents of the region will have access to RT in the Serbian language, which will "provide a more complete picture of the modern world", and that working in the media space of the Balkans is a big challenge for them.
Or, as it says in the first paragraph of the first text on the portal named RT finally in the Balkans and signed by Milinčić: "The most common word I heard when I told someone that RT was founded in the Balkans was - finally!" Finally, because in this area, networked with pro-Western media, the need for at least one Russian television station that would present the Russian attitude and Russian point of view in pictures and words has long been felt. That need has become even more obvious since March of this year, when all European RT channels were shut down."
Apart from the website, RT Balkan is also available on Telegram, Instagram, Twitter, Tik-Tok and YouTube.
The international television network RT includes news in English, Arabic, Spanish, French, German and the documentary channel RTD, includes online portals in seven languages and the global multimedia agency RUPTLI, only RT broadcasts in the European Union, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. banned for "spreading Kremlin propaganda".
Serbia as a center of Russian propaganda
RT is controlled by the Kremlin, financed from Russia's state budget and banned from broadcasting in the European Union from March 2022, because it has been designated as key to the spread of Russian propaganda and is the target of a wide package of sanctions against Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, writes Radio Free Europe (RSE) on its prortal.
Of course, the first disapproving reactions soon came from the EU. "Serbia should not be a center for disinformation from the Kremlin," said the rapporteur of the European Parliament for Serbia, Vladimira Bilčik, because that is in contradiction with the European foreign policy.
And further, Bilchik: "Actions speak louder than words." Seeing how Russian propaganda is returning to Serbia through the launch of RT contradicts Serbia's obligation to work on harmonization with European foreign policy".
Who owns RT Balkan?
Three months after the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, in May 2022, the company Balkans Media DOO with headquarters in Belgrade was registered in the Agency for Business Registers of Serbia, RSE writes.. The owner is the TV Novosti organization from Russia. The same organization is listed as the owner of RT on the media's website.
The director of the Balkans Media company in Belgrade is a Russian citizen, Nikolay Bogachikin, and he is one of the editors at Raša Tudej.
The founding capital was 1,1 million dinars (about 10.000 euros), and the main activity was the production and broadcasting of television programs.
MN/FoNet/RSE
Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com
