Russia outgunning the U.S. in information war

Russia ‘spending hugely’ on shaping the narrative.

WASHINGTON — The troubled U.S. agency responsible for delivering news around the world is being outgunned in Eastern Europe by Russian outlets unrestrained by notions of fact-based journalism.

The unequal competition raises fears among U.S. officials that Moscow is winning the information war about events in Ukraine, even as the Russian economy staggers under economic sanctions imposed after the takeover of Crimea.

“Russia has engaged in a rather remarkable period of the most overt and extensive propaganda exercise that I’ve seen since the very height of the Cold War,” Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate subcommittee in late February. It’s “spending hugely on this vast propaganda machine” and it’s succeeding “because there’s nothing countering it,” he told another panel the same day.

Not literally nothing. Up against Russia 24, Rossiya 1, Russia K, First Channel, Sputnik and other around-the-clock operations are new U.S.sponsored Russian-language offerings including “Current Time,” a newscast beamed into Eastern Europe on weekdays. The Voice of America show, co-hosted from Washington by Natasha Mozgovaya, is part of $23.2 million in programming aimed at Russian speakers. That comparatively small sum is up 49 percent from last year, according to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

How much Russia spends on its information programs is difficult to pin down, but in the face of sanctions forcing cuts elsewhere, President Vladimir Putin pledged to increase budgets for state-run outlets and cultural outreach. He said outlays for Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization devoted to spreading knowledge of Russia and its values abroad, will rise to $300 million by 2020 from $60 million.

The differences in approach between what Kerry describes as Russian propaganda and U.S.supported outlets were on display last month, on the first anniversary of the Crimean annexation.

State-owned RT quoted Putin recalling that Crimeans had voted to return to the Motherland in the face of Ukrainian nationalism. The headline: “Coming Home.”

VOA reported details RT omitted from the same interview: Putin’s acknowledgment that Moscow had planned the annexation and sent in troops weeks before the referendum. That headline: “Putin’s Latest Crimea Spin Attempts New Narrative.”

Given the David-andGoliath challenge “Current Time” faces, preparation and fact-checking are among the program’s best assets, says Mozgovaya, 35, a Russian-born, Israeli-raised former war correspondent.

“We need to double and triple-check everything because the only thing basically that we have here is credibility,” she said. “It’s a very big responsibility because broadcasting one fake from our side will cost us the reputation.”

With a budget of about $2 million a year, the program airs in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Lithuania and Latvia. It’s avail- able free to networks and on Google Inc.’s YouTube. The Broadcasting Board of Governors, the parent agency of VOA and other government-backed outlets, doesn’t know yet how many people watch “Current Time,” which began in October, but social media feedback shows it’s striking a chord, said Arkady Cherepansky, assistant managing editor of VOA’s Russian Service.

Beyond the Russianspeaking region, RT, with an annual budget of at least $241 million, sends Moscow’s version of events to the world in English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic.

The network is seen by more than 600 million people worldwide, said Peter Pomerantsev, who described Russia’s “weaponization of information” in his book, “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible.” U.S. and European officials and analysts say one of its aims is to undermine Western unity over economic sanctions.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius has called RT “no less destructive than military marching in Crimea.” Its editorial stance is that there is no objective truth, said Pomerantsev. The point isn’t persuasion, says Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, but to muddy the waters: “You have your truth, I have mine, there is no truth.”

The network’s slogan is “Question More.”

That editorial approach means RT gives air time to people who blame the CIA for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and entertains multiple theories about who shot Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 out of the skies over eastern Ukraine.