At the end of last year, the Russian state media RT (formerly Russia Today) announced the launch of a TV channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The decision came after a journalist for Alternative Television from Banjaluka asked the Russian President at the annual media conference whether RT would be launched in Republika Srpska. Putin responded that he would check with colleagues to see what they could do and if Russian television could be established in BiH.
“We are indeed familiar with the situation in Republika Srpska, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and our assessments of this situation completely coincide with the assessments of your political leadership”, Putin said. The response of the Russian President was also published by the Embassy of the Russian Federation in BiH on their Facebook profile.
A day later, on 15 December, the editor-in-chief of RT, Margarita Simonyan, announced that in 2024 they would initiate the broadcasting of RT programs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Next year, we will launch the broadcasting of programs in the Serbian language that has never existed before”, Simonyan stated for TV Russia 1.
Although BiH has fully aligned with European sanctions against Russia, which include, among other things, the prohibition of broadcasting Russian TV channels, RT and Sputnik, the content of RT is still accessible in Bosnia and Herzegovina through certain cable operators.
In response to the announcement of the launch of RT in BiH, the EU issued a statement urging BiH to refrain from deepening ties with Russia and to make additional efforts to close off space for external influence and information manipulation.
EU Spokesperson Peter Stano called at the beginning of January for all relevant political actors in BiH, a the state and entity levels, to adhere to the full implementation of restrictive measures, including those directed against Russia and Belarus. He recalled that sanctions against RT were imposed because this media outlet is “part of Russian instruments for propaganda and disinformation, accompanying the Kremlin’s illegal aggressor war against Ukraine”.
Vladimir Đorđević, Assistant Professor at the Department of Territorial Studies at the Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies at Mendel University in Brno, believes that launching RT Balkan in Bosnia will not only increase Russian influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina but will also have an impact on the whole region.
„Opening a media outlet that is directly funded by the Russian state will additionally problematize the issue of polarization in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Western Balkans. This polarization will largely follow national lines, because, in my opinion, the Russian state is actually abusing nationalist narratives in the region and using them for its propaganda“, Đorđević states.
According to him, Russian propaganda is quite successful in creating a negative picture of the West in the region.
„The fact that we will have yet another channel, after the channel in Serbia, will definitely be aimed at abusing already quite powerful narratives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly dominant in Republika Srpska. I think this will additionally problematize the whole political situation in BiH“, Đorđević said.
Member of the Editoral Boad of Raskrinkavanje.ba Rašid Krupalija assesses for EWB that with the arrival of RT, Bosnia and Herzegovina would gain just another media outlet that can not boast of objective reporting.
According to him, RT is already present in BiH in the form of content published on the RT Balkan platform, some of which are also disseminated on portals in BiH.
“Raskrinkavanje. ba has repeatedly assessed factually inaccurate claims published on this portal, ranging from coverage of the war in Ukraine to domestic topics such as the Srebrenica genocide, or issues like climate change, which RT Balkan addressed by disseminating conspiracy theories about the climate crisis”, Krupalija says.
He adds that it can be assumed that this TV station would primarily seek its audience in one part of BIH, in Republika Srpska, considering that the content on the portal largely aligns with the views of the ruling party in that entity. “This would not have any integrative impact in BiH and not even stabilizing one”, Krupalija underlines.
He notes that pro-Russian narratives are quite present in the media landscape in BiH, as well as in other Balkan countries.
“The Russian media outlets find their way to the audience through portals and social networks, but it is alarming that we have public media, such as public service or entity news agencies – media funded by taxpayers’ money – that have been under the absolute control of the ruling party for years, and on which not only propaganda narratives but also disinformation and manipulations originating from Russian sources are published”, Krupalija explains.
He assesses that television programs, especially those of public services, enjoy the trust of a significant portion of the audience so that such content not only reaches a wide audience but is also accepted as accurate information. “In this context, the announcement of RT’s arrival would be seen as an expression of unabated interest in spreading Russian influence in Bosnia and the region in general”, Krupalija says.
Speaking about how Russian state media operate in Serbia, Vladimir Đorđević assessed that they are aligned with the official narratives of the political elites, without critical reporting.
“They never criticize the political elites whatever they do. Additionally, they give them space to slander the West. For example, in the case of the Serbian President, they reported several times when he spoke very critically about the EU. On the other hand, they did not report when he praised the EU for its help and assistance to Serbia“, Đorđević said.
RT is a global television station established by the Government of the Russian Federation in 2005, and its content is broadcast on multilingual channels worldwide. Following Russia’s agression on Ukraine, the broadcasting of this channel has been prohibited in EU countries, as well as the United States, the United Kingdom, and several other nations.
In November 2022, the online version of RT in Serbian language, named RT Balkan, began its operations. Content broadcasting commenced with the message: “Kosovo is Serbia”.
Мы запустили RТ на Балканах.
Потому что Косово — это Сербия.https://t.co/kMHnfiYmgs
— Маргарита Симоньян (@M_Simonyan) November 15, 2022