Inside Russia's conspiracy theory factory

RT is banned in Europe and the US, but trying hard to win friends in the developing world, writes Clara Ferreira Marques

The EU banned RT shortly after the Ukraine invasion began in late February, in response to what it said was a Russian campaign of “disinformation, information manipulation and distortion of facts”. Photo: Misha Friedman/Getty Images

It’s the middle of the day in Moscow, and RT, the Kremlin’s 24-hour English-language news channel, is racing through a dizzying line-up.

Ukrainian soldiers are abandoning their positions in the besieged Azovstal steel plant, which RT bills as a fatal blow to Kyiv’s war effort. There’s the cautionary story of a British volunteer with the Ukrainian army, who says he was duped.