Moscow reacts to US over South American media presence

President Joe Biden’s speeches alone would be enough to negatively portray the US to audiences in the region, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has said

Moscow hardly needs to expend time or effort to make Washington look bad in Latin America, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.

Zakharova was responding to the congressional testimony of General Laura Jane Richardson, the head of the US Southern Command, who once again complained about the work of Spanish-language Russian outlets in Latin America.

Media such as RT and Sputnik Mundo “create a negative image” of the US and “undermine its interests in the region,” Richardson said, according to Zakharova.

In a post on her Telegram channel, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman pointed out that “If Russian or any other media wanted to create a negative image of Washington, they would not waste money on reporting or documentaries, but would simply broadcast [US President Joe] Biden’s speeches 24/7.”

The House Armed Services Committee heard from Richardson on Tuesday morning, as part of the annual report on the “posture” of the US military and continued challenges to security. The US Southern Command, which she has headed since October 2021, is charged with the Caribbean and Latin America south of Mexico.

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US general laments power of Russian media in Latin America

Richardson has traditionally lamented the presence of Russian media outlets in her fief, claiming last year that they “spread disinformation that undermines democracies across the hemisphere.”

At the time, she cited the fact that Sputnik Mundo, RT en Espanol and teleSUR – which is actually Venezuelan and has nothing to do with Russia – had over 31 million followers on social media.

In her testimony on Tuesday, Richardson again claimed Telesur is somehow connected to Russia and doubled down on accusations that Russian outlets “spread anti-US messaging across traditional and social media platforms.”

“Their false media narratives commonly blame the United States for creating a global food crisis and supporting Nazism in Ukraine, while portraying the United States as a greedy and imperialist state concerned with maximum extraction of the continent’s resources,” Richardson told Congress.