The flagship of Vladimir Putin’s would-be American radio propaganda empire is a tiny station in Washington, D.C’s suburbs. Something I wrote:

The tiny radio station broadcasting Russian propaganda in D.C.
How the Kremlin found a Beltway home for ‘Radio Sputnik,' known for spreading Russian spin.

Media

The tiny radio station broadcasting Russian propaganda in D.C.

How the Kremlin found a middleman who found a Beltway home for Radio Sputnik, known for spreading Russian spin.

By Paul Farhi
Yesterday at 8:19 a.m. EST

For a few seconds every hour, WZHF-AM interrupts its round-the-clock schedule of talk to air a curious disclaimer: “This radio programming is distributed by RM Broadcasting on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, Moscow, Russia. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.”

The cryptic notification masks a larger story. WZHF, a former Spanish-language station 11 miles east of the White House in Maryland’s Capitol Heights, is the flagship of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s effort to harness America’s radio airwaves to sell the Kremlin’s point of view. Despite periodic legal and political challenges, and the imposition of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the station has stayed on the air, broadcasting its Kremlin-approved message.

The station at 1390 AM is one of only five outlets in the United States that air English-language broadcasts of “Radio Sputnik,” produced in Moscow and Washington under the Russian government’s supervision.

Sputnik is the radio and digital arm of Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), the same Kremlin-controlled media agency that directs RT and RT America, the better-known TV and digital media operations founded by Putin’s regime in 2005. ... But while American distributors and European governments have banned RT since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, leading to the collapse of RT’s American operations on Thursday, WZHF is still offering Sputnik’s content to Beltway listeners.

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By Paul Farhi
Paul Farhi is The Washington Post's media reporter. He started at The Post in 1988 and has been a financial reporter, a political reporter and a Style reporter. Twitter https://twitter.com/farhip