MISINFORMATION MONITOR How Russian Fake News Stays on YouTube

Propaganda justifying the Ukraine war proliferated on the platform despite a ban on Russian state-funded media

- EVA MAITLAND, MADELINE ROACHE and SOPHIA TEWA

"WE HEAR THAT WE STARTED THE WAR IN DONbas, Ukraine-No." Russian President Vladimir Putin says grimly to the camera, flanked by the colors of the Russian flag. "It was unleashed by the collective West, which organized and supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine in 2014, and then encouraged and justified genocide on the people of Donbas."

This clip-in which Putin advances blatant misinformation about the origins of the war that he, in fact, started-appears at the beginning of a polished, 30-minute documentary on YouTube channel iEarlGrey, which according to Russian state media, is run by independent journalist Mike Jones. The channel's logo is embedded in the video, but Jones is not its creator. The film was produced by Russian propaganda outlet RT and was first published on its documentary website, RTD.RT.com, a fact NewsGuard easily confirmed by comparing iEarlGrey's YouTube upload to the branded RT documentary on RTD.RT.com. On YouTube, iEarlGrey's republished RT film racked up 43,000 views in three months and contains no RT branding, nor any warning that the content is Russian propaganda.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, RT's documentary site, RTD.RT.com, has published 50 films that advance disinformation about the war, a rate of about one a week. These documentaries are available for free on RTD's website and, as NewsGuard discovered, on YouTube in Russian and English, with some available in French and Spanish.