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Diplomacy Watch: Russian media in eye of the storm

Feds say RT employees helped to raise weapons for Ukraine, spread disinfo. Hillary Clinton joins in.

Analysis | QiOSK

On Monday, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp owner Meta said that it was going to ban a number of Russian state media outlets, including RT (formerly Russia Today).

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets: Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a statement.

This occurs just days after the Biden administration announced sanctions against RT. United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said that Russian media entities “are no longer merely fire hoses of Russian propaganda and disinformation. They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.”

In its own statement, the State Department said “The United States supports the free flow of information. We are not taking action against these entities and individuals for the content of their reporting, or even the disinformation they create and spread publicly. We are taking action against them for their covert influence activities.”

Those covert activities, the agency charged, include RT employees allegedly working with Russian intelligence services to influence the election in Moldova, as well as to crowdfund weapons and supplies for the Russian military in Ukraine, among other activities.

Earlier this month the Department of Justice announced the seizure of 32 web domains it said were linked to the Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns in violation of U.S. money laundering and criminal trademark laws. Two former employees of RT were indicted for their links to a U.S. media platform designed to covertly spread Russian disinformation via American influencers, according to the DOJ.

Despite Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg’s recent lamentations over what he called government pressure to censor posts relating to the pandemic during the COVID era, he is likely still smarting from two previous presidential election cycles in which Facebook was accused of not doing enough to manage Russian bots and misinformation (a problem that has been hotly debated for its actual impact on the elections).

Meanwhile, during an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was asked whether the U.S. government was doing enough to combat the kind of Kremlin-directed propaganda cited in the recent indictments. She suggested that government censorship was also necessary to combat Russian misinformation, even positing that Americans might be criminally charged for proliferating it.

“I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda,” she said. “And whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence, because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States.”

The Quincy Institute’s Marcus Stanley pointed out the ironies last week in a report about the House passing an authorization for $1.6 billion for a program that would allow the U.S. government to pursue its own potentially covert information operations via foreign media and civil society sources to combat Chinese “malign influence” globally.

Stanley points out that in addition to potential foreign blowback from such legislation, “another problem raised by the proposed legislation is the possibility that anti-Chinese propaganda financed by this program will flow back into the American media space and influence American audiences, without any disclosure of its initial source of funding.”

Washington is more than happy to participate in covert message management, all while Antony Blinken claims that aggressive moves against Russian media entities are “shining a bright light on what the Kremlin is trying to do under the cover of darkness.”

In other Ukraine war news this week:

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Moscow’s troops have been engaging in a counter-offensive in Kursk, reclaiming a few villages and threatening Ukraine’s ability to hold onto the territory it has seized. At the same time, Russian soldiers in Ukraine have continued advancing on the eastern Ukraine city of Pokrovsk, which is a strategic hub for Ukraine’s forces, and if lost would greatly impact Kyiv’s ability to move men and supplies to the front and take away a key buffer for central Ukraine. This comes after Putin ordered all Kursk territory to be returned to Russia by October first.

The number of Ukrainians and Russians killed or wounded has reached around one million according to the Wall Street Journal. A Ukrainian estimate placed Ukrainian deaths at 80,000 and wounded at 400,000. Russian casualties are estimated to be as high as 600,000 dead and wounded. This staggering number is bound to have long-term effects on both nations, especially as Russia and Ukraine have seen population declines in recent years.

As Western powers discuss the possibility of allowing Ukraine to send long-range missiles further into Russian territory, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament affirmed that such an action would be extremely antagonistic. According to Reuters, Volodin said “What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons," on Telegram.

In this week’s Sept. 17 State Department briefing:

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller was asked whether the Biden Administration would be announcing anything regarding White House approval for the use of American-made long-range missiles in attacks deep inside of Russia. Miller said no. When asked if the administration felt there was an urgency for a decision soon, given Ukraine’s need to improve its position on the battlefield, Miller responded by saying the administration wants to make sure that with everything that we provide them there’s a strategic rationale for doing so.”

“There is no one capability that ultimately, by itself, is the magic wand that is decisive in this conflict,” he added. “There are a number of different capabilities that taken together can help Ukraine win this war, and that’s what we continue to provide them, and we will continue to assess whether there are additional capabilities, additional tactics, additional techniques that we ought to provide to them. And when we assess that it is in their interest and the interests of the United States to do so, we’ll do so.”


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The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.


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Donald Trump’s recent outburst against Vladimir Putin — accusing the Russian leader of "throwing a pile of bullsh*t at us" and threatening devastating new sanctions — might be just another Trumpian tantrum.

The president is known for abrupt reversals. Or it could be a bargaining tactic ahead of potential Ukraine peace talks. But there’s a third, more troubling possibility: establishment Republican hawks and neoconservatives, who have been maneuvering to hijack Trump’s “America First” agenda since his return to office, may be exploiting his frustration with Putin to push for a prolonged confrontation with Russia.

Trump’s irritation is understandable. Ukraine has accepted his proposed ceasefire, but Putin has refused, making him, in Trump’s eyes, the main obstacle to ending the war.

Putin’s calculus is clear. As Ted Snider notes in the American Conservative, Russia is winning on the battlefield. In June, it captured more Ukrainian territory and now threatens critical Kyiv’s supply lines. Moscow also seized a key lithium deposit critical to securing Trump’s support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes have intensified.

Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.

Yet his strategy empowers the transatlantic “forever war” faction: leaders in Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with hawks in both main U.S. parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that diplomacy with Russia is “exhausted.” Europe’s war party, convinced a Russian victory would inevitably lead to an attack on NATO (a suicidal prospect for Moscow), is willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawks, including liberal interventionist Democrats, stoke Trump’s ego, framing failure to stand up to Putin’s defiance as a sign of weakness or appeasement.

Trump long resisted this pressure. Pragmatism told him Ukraine couldn’t win, and calling it “Biden’s war” was his way of distancing himself, seeking a quick exit to refocus on China, which he has depicted as Washington’s greater foreign threat. At least as important, U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine has been unpopular with his MAGA base.

But his June strikes on Iran may signal a hawkish shift. By touting them as a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear program (despite Tehran’s refusal so far to abandon uranium enrichment), Trump may be embracing a new approach to dealing with recalcitrant foreign powers: offer a deal, set a deadline, then unleash overwhelming force if rejected. The optics of “success” could tempt him to try something similar with Russia.

This pivot coincides with a media campaign against restraint advocates within the administration like Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief who has prioritized China over Ukraine and also provoked the opposition of pro-Israel neoconservatives by warning against war with Iran. POLITICO quoted unnamed officials attacking Colby for wanting the U.S. to “do less in the world.” Meanwhile, the conventional Republican hawk Marco Rubio’s influence grows as he combines the jobs of both secretary of state and national security adviser.

What Can Trump Actually Do to Russia?
 

Nuclear deterrence rules out direct military action — even Biden, far more invested in Ukraine than Trump, avoided that risk. Instead, Trump ally Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another establishment Republican hawk, is pushing a 500% tariff on nations buying Russian hydrocarbons, aiming to sever Moscow from the global economy. Trump seems supportive, although the move’s feasibility and impact are doubtful.

China and India are key buyers of Russian oil. China alone imports 12.5 million barrels daily. Russia exports seven million barrels daily. China could absorb Russia’s entire output. Beijing has bluntly stated it “cannot afford” a Russian defeat, ensuring Moscow’s economic lifeline remains open.

The U.S., meanwhile, is ill-prepared for a tariff war with China. When Trump imposed 145% tariffs, Beijing retaliated by cutting off rare earth metals exports, vital to U.S. industry and defense. Trump backed down.

At the G-7 summit in Canada last month, the EU proposed lowering price caps on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel as part of its 18th sanctions package against Russia. Trump rejected the proposal at the time but may be tempted to reconsider, given his suggestion that more sanctions may be needed. Even if Washington backs the measure now, however, it is unlikely to cripple Russia’s war machine.

Another strategy may involve isolating Russia by peeling away Moscow’s traditionally friendly neighbors. Here, Western mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan isn’t about peace — if it were, pressure would target Baku, which has stalled agreements and threatened renewed war against Armenia. The real goal is to eject Russia from the South Caucasus and create a NATO-aligned energy corridor linking Turkey to Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Iran to their detriment.

Central Asia itself is itself emerging as a new battleground. In May 2025, the EU has celebrated its first summit with Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan, with a heavy focus on developing the Middle Corridor, a route for transportation of energy and critical raw materials that would bypass Russia. In that context, the EU has committed €10 billion in support of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

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On June 30, President Trump signed an executive order terminating the majority of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The move, which would have been unthinkable mere months ago, fulfilled a promise he made at an investment forum in Riyadh in May.“The sanctions were brutal and crippling,” he had declared to an audience of primarily Saudi businessmen. Lifting them, he said, will “give Syria a chance at greatness.”

The significance of this statement lies not solely in the relief that it will bring to the Syrian people. His remarks revealed an implicit but rarely admitted truth: sanctions — often presented as a peaceful alternative to war — have been harming the Syrian people all along.

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