Russian RT broadcasts online in Serbian under the name RT Balkan

The Russian state news network Russia Today (RT) announced that began broadcasting online, as RT Balkan, content of its program in the Serbian language.

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonian announced the event on Twitter with the message: “We launched RT in the Balkans. Because Kosovo is Serbia.”

The European Union has banned from March 2022 the broadcasting of a program by RT, which is considered a media outlet controlled by the Kremlin, financed by the state budget of the Russian Federation and spreading Putin’s propaganda. His ban came as part of sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Serbia however, despite warnings from Brussels, refuses to coordinate with EU foreign policy and allowed its operation. As announced on RT’s official Russian website, by 2024 a TV channel called RT Balkan will start operating in Serbia.

“Being part of the Balkan media space is a big challenge for us. We are ready! Probably nowhere in the world were they waiting for us as long as here (s.s.: in Serbia). I want to address the dear Serbs in their language: “Brothers, watch RT,” Margarita Simonian says in a statement published on RT’s website.

The reaction from Brussels was immediate. The rapporteur for Serbia in the European Parliament, Vladimir Bilcik, emphasized that Serbia, by allowing the operation of a means of “Russian war propaganda”, is being led in the wrong direction. “The operation of Russian state-sponsored media that spreads hate propaganda is not what we want in Europe, nor what we want to see happen in the countries that are candidates for joining the Union,” Bilchik pointed out, commenting the launch of RT in Serbia.

RES-EMP

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