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Courtesy of the Sunday Telegraph.
Russian-owned television stations are using Britain as a hub to broadcast Kremlin propaganda and conspiracy theories about the Salisbury attack across Europe, the Telegraph can disclose. Two stations identified by EU officials as spreading “conspiracies” about “foreign politicians” are transmitting programmes from Russia to former Soviet republics with licences provided by Ofcom.
Both are registered at offices in central London. The broadcasts are causing serious concerns among Britain’s allies in countries that neighbour Russia, with one senior diplomat warning of a “strong disinformation campaign” being run through the channels, akin to the efforts launched by the Kremlin after funding rebel groups in eastern Ukraine, in an apparent attempt to stir up unrest among Russian-speaking minorities. One channel has been found to have breached Ofcom rules eight times in the last six years, but continues to operate using its British licence.
The breaches included an item urging viewers to sign a petition triggering a referendum on changing the Latvian constitution, along with a false claim that the message was endorsed by the Latvian electoral commission. It was also found in breach over comments by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a Russian nationalist politician, broadcast in 2015, saying that Russia should “burn Kiev down”. “We will napalm them out,” he said.
Baiba Braže, Latvia’s ambassador to the UK, said Ofcom needed to “do more” to tackle the stations, and called for changes to EU rules to allow local regulators to intervene. Ofcom is reviewing the licences of Russia Today, the Kremlin-backed channel which broadcasts in the UK, but Ms Braže suggested the regulator had long failed to take effective action against worse offenders which made use of British licences to broadcast into the EU, but were not shown in this country. They were broadcasting “pure propaganda”, she said. EU regulations allow broadcasters to transmit throughout the union if they are registered in just one member state. The regulator in the “country of origin”, in this case the UK, is solely responsible for policing each broadcaster registered in its country, regardless of where the programmes are transmitted. Ofcom has been lobbying for the “country of origin” principle to remain in place after Brexit, boasting that Britain is home to “the world’s largest number of pan-European media companies”. Almost 400 of the 1,200 UK-licensed channels do not broadcast in this country, but Sharon White, the regulator’s chief executive, said in a speech last year that they must still “comply with our rules” which include broadcasting “impartial and accurate news”.