Russian Propaganda Finds Powerful Megaphone in India

On Monday, Feb. 2, President Donald Trump announced he would lower tariffs on India after Modi agreed to stop buying Russian oil. As many in Washington are celebrating this deal, Russia’s propaganda outlet RT is already warning about the pitfalls of “cautious optimism.” As Washington is trying to divorce India from Russia, Moscow understands that whoever controls the narrative, controls the outcome; and in December last year, Russia launched its propaganda weapon “RT India,” portraying it as “a new voice from an old friend.”

The timing is not coincidental. RT India now broadcasts to millions of Indian cable viewers in English, with a Hindi website planned for 2026. Ahead of the launch, RT ran a ‘pan-India ad blitz’ campaign highlighting the strength and legacy of India-Russia partnership. One billboard stated “The dialogue began decades ago. We’re just turning up the volume.”

Press Trust of India also signed a cooperation agreement with Russian state news agency TASS. National Media Group, a Kremlin-aligned media conglomerate, signed content-sharing, co-production, and reciprocal platform hosting agreements with Asian News International and TV9 Network. ANI content flows to hundreds of Indian outlets including The Print, Business Standard, and Yahoo News India. These agreements formalize direct pipelines from Moscow’s content agenda into South Asia’s top multimedia agencies.

Integration into Indian media is just one piece of Moscow’s growing information offensive in the Global South. Established at Putin’s direction in 2017, TV BRICS is a Moscow-based media outlet that covers founding BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and candidate states. TV BRICS claims an even wider reach – 1.5 billion people in 80 countries through media partnerships in 18 countries.

TV BRICS operates as an intermediary for Kremlin influence campaigns. The content looks benign: economic coverage, cultural features, feel-good stories. But the purpose is to launder state narratives through partnerships with over 100 media outlets, exerting Russian soft power internationally while obscuring its origin.

During the summit, TV BRICS signed agreements requiring Prasar Bharati, India’s largest public broadcaster, to exchange content and share information agendas. Prasar Bharati’s infrastructure covers 98% of India’s population.

Prasar Bharati CEO Gaurav Dwivedi framed the partnerships as advancing India’s national narrative to BRICS audiences. But the practical effect is that India’s dominant newswire, largest public broadcaster, and leading news agency now have formalized content pipelines to Kremlin-linked producers, bypassing Western gatekeepers entirely. Reversal means breaking contracts, not just changing editorial policy.

Information operations are central to Moscow’s strategic goals. Russian military doctrine holds that “informational or economic victory” matters more than traditional battlefield success.

The narratives pushed by RT and TV BRICS draw on real history, as post-independence India received substantial Soviet aid while Western powers sided with Pakistan. These grievances are weaponized: in September, RT launched “The Price of Empire,” a series revealing the “systematic looting, suppression and destruction” of India by the British.

The frame now targets the US. A November RT article, titled “Putin’s India comeback: The summit the US tried to kill,” portrays the US as a coercive outsider, while recasting Russia’s invasion as the “Ukraine military operation.” An October article, “How Washington’s crusade against Russian oil went sideways,” accuses the West of hypocrisy for granting Germany sanctions waivers while punishing India. Putin’s rhetoric in New Delhi also followed the narrative, asking: “If the US has the right to buy our nuclear fuel, why shouldn’t India have the same privilege?”

Modi’s language was strikingly similar, describing the India-Russia partnership as “steadfast like a pole star,” announcing plans to take the partnership “to new heights,” and honoring Putin’s arrival with a 21-gun salute.

Although the United States is India’s largest trading partner, with $132 billion in bilateral trade in fiscal year 2025, Russian media portrays Washington as unreliable, and American officials keep proving Putin’s point.

The same Russian oil purchases White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro labeled “blood money,” the Biden administration once encouraged. In 2022, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US was “happy for India to continue buying as much Russian oil as it wants,” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Trump administration has been no more consistent. On Jan. 1, India assumed the BRICS chairmanship. Within a week, US Senator Lindsey Graham announced Trump’s support for the Sanctioning Russia Act, threatening 500% tariffs on countries buying Russian oil. In May 2025, India and Pakistan engaged in a brief aerial conflict, where Pakistan deployed American F-16s. Since then, Washington has included Pakistan in an AMRAAM missile contract in October and authorized a $686 million F-16 modernization package in December. How should New Delhi interpret an ally that lectures on energy purchases while upgrading the fighter jets used against it?

RT doesn’t need to fabricate American hypocrisy, as US officials demonstrate it in real time. Moscow will continue portraying American trade demands as neo-imperialism, and the Trump administration must strengthen its public diplomacy messaging and expose Moscow as India’s unreliable ally.

But first, Washington must get its own house in order. Modi will act in India’s national interest. The question is whether the US can articulate a consistent vision of partnership, or whether it will cede Russia the narrative.

Ivana Stradner serves as a research fellow with the Barish Center for Media Integrity at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Britt Bowersox is a recent graduate from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she double-majored in International Affairs and Linguistics, with a concentration in Europe/Eurasia and Russian language.