- published: 24 Mar 2016
- views: 118195
Sputnik is an international multimedia service launched on 10 November 2014 by Rossiya Segodnya, an agency wholly owned and operated by the Russian government, which was created by a Decree of the President of Russia on December 9, 2013. Sputnik replaces the RIA Novosti news agency on an international stage (which remains active in Russia) and Voice of Russia. According to its chief Dmitry Kiselyov, Sputnik intends to counter the "aggressive propaganda that is now being fed to the world".
Radio Sputnik is the audio element of the platform and aims to "operate in 30 languages in 2015, for a total of over 800 hours a day, covering over 130 cities and 34 countries on "FM, DAB/DAB+ (Digital Radio Broadcasting), HD Radio, as well as mobile phones and the Internet."
In a 2016 analysis Center for European Policy Analysis concluded that the station provides extremely biased information, for example by inviting only a selected group of commenting politicians, known for anti-liberal and pro-Russian views. German magazine Die Zeit describes it as a part of Russias information war against the West.