The voice of Putin in the world

According to The Moscow Times, the Russian state budget includes a 41 percent increase for RT, the state-backed television network that broadcasts around the world in a number of languages. Rossiya Segodnya [Russia Today] is set to see a tripling of its budget.

According to Der Spigel, since 2005, the Russian government has increased the channel's annual budget more than tenfold, from $30 million (€22.6 million) to over $300 million. Russia Today's budget covers the salaries of 2,500 employees and contractors worldwide, 100 in Washington alone. And the channel has no budget cuts to fear now that Putin has issued a decree forbidding his finance minister from taking any such steps.

In fact, according to a European Commission research, RT English version is one of the most popular international channels in Europe together with BBC and CNN International. In 2013, RT became the first news website to achieve one billion views in Youtube.

RT Spanish and RT Arabic have their own programs. RT Spanish was launched in 2009. The channel has correspondent offices in Miami, Madrid, Caracas, Buenos Aires and Havana.

During Vladimir Putin’s visit to Argentina, on 12 July 2014, Putin and the former president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced that RT will be available in the public TV around the clock. The channel was opened on 9 October.

Nowadays, Putin plans to increase influence by creating French and German channels.

According to Reporters without Borders, the Russian Federation is ranked 149th out of the 180 countries in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index.

According to Freedom House, Russia has a Not Free status in the press field and a Partly Free status in the use of the Internet.