Rossiya Segodnya

Rossiya Segodnya is Russia’s international state news agency, constituted as the Federal State Unitary Enterprise International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya. It was registered in December 2013 following the presidential decree liquidating RIA Novosti, and its lineage runs through Sovinformburo, founded in 1941, the Novosti Press Agency from 1961 and RIA Novosti from 1993. Despite the shared English rendering of its name, it is a separate organisation from the television network RT.

Media assets

News portals: Sputnik News, RIA Novosti, RIA Novosti Sport, RIA Rating, RIA Novosti Crimea, INOSMI, Baltnews for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Ukraina, Prime, Realty, Social Navigator and The Arctic

The agency maintains twelve separate subdivisions, comprising two offices and ten representative offices.

Ownership and governance

Rossiya Segodnya is a Federal State Unitary Enterprise whose sole founder is the Russian Federation, holding a 100 per cent stake. Its charter capital is RUB 50 million. It was created by presidential decree in December 2013, replacing RIA Novosti as part of a consolidation of the state’s international information apparatus, and operates under the direct authority of the presidency.

Dmitry Kiselyov has been Director General since the agency’s foundation and remains so in current corporate records, having replaced Svetlana Mironyuk at the head of the predecessor agency.

Margarita Simonyan is Editor-in-Chief of Rossiya Segodnya as well as of RT. The two organisations are formally separate, and the published record is right to say so, but they share an editor-in-chief.

Kiselyov appears on the sanctions lists of the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and Ukraine. He was among the earliest individuals designated by the European Union over Crimea.

The agency itself is under sanctions from the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Canada and Ukraine. The United Kingdom designated it on 31 March 2022. In September 2024 the United States designated Rossiya Segodnya and associated entities as foreign missions.

Source of funding and budget

Rossiya Segodnya is financed almost entirely from federal subsidies.

Documented allocations include approximately RUB 6.7 billion in 2020, RUB 7.6 billion in 2021, RUB 9.3 billion in 2022 and RUB 9.4 billion in 2023. State subsidies reached RUB 10.9 billion in 2025.

Budget documentation for 2026 to 2028 provides the agency with approximately RUB 8.6 billion annually.

The published accounts show how far commercial revenue falls short. For 2022 the agency recorded revenue of RUB 1.59 billion against cost of sales of RUB 7.91 billion, producing a gross loss of RUB 6.32 billion. Total receipts from current operations were RUB 11.25 billion. Commercial revenue therefore covered roughly a fifth of production costs, with the balance met from the state.

Editorial independence

Rossiya Segodnya functions as an instrument of Russian state messaging. Its editorial line advances state interests, promotes Moscow’s foreign policy positions and discredits countries, institutions and groups treated as hostile.

Academic research and reports by international organisations document the agency’s role in state information campaigns. Its foreign-language portals, particularly Sputnik, have been cited by European Union institutions and NATO for spreading false or misleading content.

The European Union and several Western governments have banned Sputnik content since 2022, limiting the group’s visibility in Europe while its operations have expanded in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

AI and digital policy

State Media Monitor could not identify a published Rossiya Segodnya policy governing generative artificial intelligence, mandatory human verification, model provenance or audience disclosure, and could not establish the extent of adoption in production.

Classification rationale

Rossiya Segodnya remains classified State-Controlled Media (SC).

It is wholly state-owned and directly state-governed. The agency is a Federal State Unitary Enterprise whose sole founder is the Russian Federation with a 100 per cent stake, created by presidential decree and operating under the authority of the presidency. Dmitry Kiselyov has been Director General since its foundation in 2013. No independent supervisory board, protected appointment procedure or external oversight mechanism was identified.

It is almost entirely state-funded. Subsidies reached RUB 10.9 billion in 2025, with approximately RUB 8.6 billion annually provided for 2026 to 2028. The 2022 accounts show commercial revenue of RUB 1.59 billion against RUB 7.91 billion in cost of sales, a gross loss of RUB 6.32 billion met from the state.

Its editorial agenda is directed by the state. Academic research and international reporting document its role in state information campaigns, its Sputnik portals have been cited by European Union institutions and NATO for false or misleading content, and it shares an editor-in-chief with the state network RT. The formal protections of the Law on Mass Media are unsupported by independent governance.

September 2026