Head of RT admits: There are more Russian platforms like Tenet Media out there
The Tennessee-based media platform for right-wing influencers is hardly an outlier
Thank you to everyone who came to VESPERS yesterday! We had a fascinating discussion about journalist/GRU spy Pablo Gonzalez, including his terrible tradecraft, his cagey lawyer, and why his extramarital affairs may hurt his reputation among his Spanish compatriots more than his treason. Go figure. If you missed it, you missed out!
But there will be other opportunities! I’m lining up other guests. Stay tuned!
ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
I’ll be keeping it short this week, as I’ve barely been keeping my head above water the last few days. But I did want to bring one story to your attention.
In case you haven’t met her yet, this is Margarita Simonyan. She is the head of RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik.
Simonyan, who once said Russia needed RT for the same reason it needed a defense ministry, is responsible for growing those state-funded propaganda outlets into the global pro-Russia media network we see spreading Russian propaganda today. Indeed, the outlets have very little to do with journalism and everything to do with, as Simonyan herself has put it, waging information war. RT now oversees media platforms in 25 languages and runs information operations from Africa and Latin America to the United States and Europe and beyond.
Until recently, however, Simonyan was quiet about RT’s clandestine efforts. That changed in an interview given around the same time the US Department of Justice dropped its indictment of two RT employees and outlined the clandestine operation by RT to run the Tennessee-based Tenet Media and pay right-wing influencers like Tim Pool and Benny Johnson hundreds of thousands of dollars to spew Kremlin narratives. For background see this past Rant!
The DOJ indictment uncovers Russian documents noting that, after being sanctioned in the US and Europe, RT created an “entire empire of covert projects” whose objective is to shape the opinion of “Western audiences.”
Simonyan, in her September 8 interview, seems to admit all this. According to EU v. Disinfo:
In the new interview, Simonyan suggested that following US and EU sanctions, RT ‘began to walk guerrilla paths’, meaning that it went underground to operate covertly.
‘I already mentioned this without mentioning details at the time – and I won’t mention details in the future either,’ Simonyan said, ‘but I mentioned in different broadcasts publicly that we stayed in these countries, that we are working and will continue to work, just now indirectly.’ [emphasis added]
What might this ‘indirect’ work involve? ‘I will of course not say with whom we have or haven’t worked, but I will say that we’ll continue doing so as far as possible.’
She suggested that if ‘they didn’t like us when we were working openly, they liked us even less when we started working indirectly.’ She concluded, ‘You reap what you sow.’
In short, RT and its information warfare platforms are still operating in the US and Europe. As I said in my write-up about the RT indictment involving Tenet media, there is no way Tenet is the only one. It is the tip of the iceberg. So, next time you hear someone saying exactly the same thing the Kremlin says, stop and ask why they are saying it and who is paying them.
And a friendly reminder, it isn’t just “journalists” and influencers. It’s politicians, too, as I wrote about here.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of things you should be reading
RUSSIAN SABOTAGE
RUSSIA AND CHINA
Russia and China’s cooperation in the Arctic is a rising nuclear threat (Politico)
US ELECTION INTEGRITY
Tina Peters: Former Colorado county clerk sentenced to 9 years for voting data scheme (CNN)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
Seems like this is the 21 century example of Clausewitz's war by other means. Putin has been at "war " with the west since he came to power. Guerilla warfare- the logical way a weaker side will carry on the battle. They don't have the military might to win, so use the "soft underbelly" of the west- weaponizing free speech.
Hitler practiced In front of a mirror, trump on Twitter and the camera. Putin and RT financed it, a natural out evelotion of KGB/Stasi-
Trump Putin Orban Spy (apologies to John Le Clarre)
A rhythmic cadence of history
Honestly, the safe assumption has always been that there are more Tenet Medias out there, especially after RT was labeled and crippled. Such lines of effort are nearly costless relative to the return on investment *and* because there are virtually no meaningful costs imposed on Russia for these actions, nor are substantial costs imposed on Americans who work for these outlets.
Some Americans may align with the RT mission, including those of Tenet, but sometimes the Americans may just want a paycheck. One example of the latter is when, many years ago, DOD shuttered an information program operating abroad. Despite knowing the end date of the contract, GDI and similar outfits, suddenly and without warning fired the skilled contractors working the program. This included former PSYOP operators. Only seeking a paycheck, more than one landed at RT because they were approached with a rich salary and needed to pay bills, not because they aligned with their mission. Regardless, it was the wrong thing to do and nothing was done on the US side, despite the awareness of the potential and then of the actual actions of these people.
Now, consider the people who see a shared objective, and there are a bunch of people willing to sell out their country thinking they are doing something else. Look back at Cambridge Analytica and there were a bunch of former PSYOP operators and other DOD contractors and firms doing similar work for a paycheck or because they supported a particular candidate while at the same time flying the red, white, and blue while failing to acknowledge or accept that they were actually working against the oaths they had taken.