# Sputnik News Agency The Russian state's foreign-facing news and radio brand, launched in November 2014 by the state media conglomerate Rossiya Segodnya, which Putin created by decree in December 2013 with Dmitry Kiselyov as its head and [[Margarita Simonyan]] as editor-in-chief. Sputnik is [[RT]]'s sister operation. (Not to be confused with [[Sputnik]], the 1957 Soviet satellite.) For this vault its most important feature is the **Washington radio play**: from 2017 Sputnik broadcast on local AM and FM frequencies a few miles from the White House, and one of its hosts was a former [[Breitbart News]] reporter. ## Timeline | Date | Event | |---|---| | Dec 9, 2013 | Putin decree creates Rossiya Segodnya | | Nov 10, 2014 | Sputnik launches, replacing the Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti's foreign services | | Apr 2017 | [[Lee Stranahan]], ex-Breitbart, launches the Radio Sputnik show *Fault Lines*: "I'm on the Russian payroll now" | | June / Nov 2017 | Radio Sputnik airs in Washington on 105.5 FM and 1390 AM, leased through a Florida company, RM Broadcasting | | Jan 2018 | The Justice Department tells RIA Global LLC, which produces Sputnik's U.S. content, that it must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act | | May 2019 | A federal judge rules RM Broadcasting must register as a foreign agent — the first civil FARA enforcement action since 1991 | | Mar 2, 2022 | EU suspends RT and Sputnik broadcasting after the invasion of Ukraine; YouTube blocks them globally days later | | Sept 4–13, 2024 | The U.S. designates Rossiya Segodnya, RT and Sputnik as foreign missions, then sanctions Rossiya Segodnya and Kiselyov; Secretary Blinken calls RT a "de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus." Same week: the [[Tenet Media Russian Influence Indictment]] | | Oct 2024 | Sputnik goes off the air in Washington and Kansas City, citing the new burdens | | June 2025 | [[Azerbaijan]] raids Sputnik's Baku office and jails its executives; the bureau closes | ## Why it matters here Sputnik's U.S. operation shows the pipeline running in both directions. Russian state media hired an American right-wing personality and put him on the air in the capital; its talking points — the [[CrowdStrike Conspiracy Theory]] among them — then circulated back through American right-wing media. The 2024 actions mark the shift in how Washington treated the network, from "propaganda outlet" to covert-influence operation — the same frame as the Tenet Media case. ## See Also - [[RT]] · [[Margarita Simonyan]] · [[Tenet Media]] - [[Lee Stranahan]] · [[Breitbart News]] - [[Kremlin Disinformation]] · [[Active Measures]] · [[CrowdStrike Conspiracy Theory]]