Russia's RT India Launch and the Wider Global South Campaign

In late 2025, Russia began promoting a new state-run channel for Indian audiences. An advertising campaign stretching from New Delhi to Chennai told potential viewers to expect a “new voice from an old friend.” The launch, RT India, was scheduled for December 2025 and would carry news bulletins, documentaries and public affairs programming “tailored to a broad Indian audience.”

Russia's timing was striking. Moscow was still fighting its costly full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while its economy faced labor shortages, stagflation and weaker oil revenue. Yet the Kremlin treated RT India as a priority, the latest addition to the RT network aimed at non-Western audiences.

A new Atlantic Council report from the Eurasia Center's “Russia Tomorrow” series examines how and why Moscow is targeting audiences in the Global South. It identifies three recurring themes: anti-colonialism, sovereignty and independence. Those themes connect messaging across Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The report argues that the campaign's success is easy to understate. Even where Russia has not won open backing for its war, it has helped cultivate opposition to Western sanctions and policies within key Global South countries, which can extend Moscow's ability to sustain the war and lay the groundwork for deeper relationships.

The Anti-Colonial Frame Driving Russia's Global South Appeal

Why RT India Is More Than a New Channel

RT India fits a broader architecture of influence. According to the Atlantic Council report, Moscow no longer relies only on traditional outlets such as RT. It has been building a network of social media accounts and recruiting influencers, including people with small followings, to carry pro-Kremlin narratives. The December 2025 launch gives that ecosystem a high-profile broadcast anchor in India, and advertising framed as “a new voice from an old friend” aims to give state messaging a familiar, less overtly Russian face.

The Anti-Colonial Script Moscow Is Running

The report's core finding is that Russia's Global South outreach now runs on a triad of sovereignty, independence and anti-colonialism. At the February 2024 “For the Freedom of Nations” forum, Vladimir Putin cast the West as the neocolonial power and Russia as a supporter of young independent states. This is not new — it revives Soviet-era positioning as an ally of anti-colonial movements — but the Atlantic Council argues it has become central since the 2022 invasion and has largely displaced Russia's earlier focus on “traditional values.”

The Contradiction the Framing Obscures

The framing is factually strained. The report notes that Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were once part of the Russian/Soviet empire, while Chechnya, Sakha and Buryatia remain inside the Russian Federation. Moscow downplays that colonial history. Yet the contradiction rarely undermines the appeal in target countries: the European Council on Foreign Relations author Mikhail Komin, cited in the report, wrote that the Kremlin's story resonates because it presents Russia as the main challenger to an unjust Western-centric order. That perception, more than agreement with Russia's war, is what Moscow is trying to convert into political distance from the West.

What Counts as Success

The report cautions that the campaign has not produced a clear Global South embrace of Russia's invasion. But by reducing support for Ukraine and complicating sanctions, it can still serve Moscow's objectives. That distinction matters for policymakers: influence operations should be judged not only by whether they change public opinion in Russia's favor, but by whether they increase abstention, neutrality and friction with Western policies.

Countering the RT India Campaign: Where the Pressure Points Sit

For governments, platforms and companies operating in or engaging with the Global South, the report points to several specific pressure points.

  • Prepare counter-narratives before RT India's December 2025 launch, directly addressing the channel's “new voice from an old friend” framing and contrasting Russia's anti-colonial rhetoric with its own imperial history in Ukraine, Chechnya, Sakha and Buryatia.
  • Treat small-follower influencer accounts as a primary vector: the report identifies them as an expanding part of Russia's influence architecture, so disclosure and fact-checking efforts should target the “sovereignty, independence, anti-colonialism” triad wherever it appears.
  • Approach forums modeled on the “For the Freedom of Nations” Russia-Africa and Russia-Latin America events as diplomatic instruments, and be explicit to partners about the strategic purpose behind the anti-colonial invitation.
  • For brands and media buyers, screen partnerships with state-linked media in target markets against sanctions risks, because Russia's outreach explicitly aims to normalize opposition to Western sanctions as a defense of sovereignty.