Russia's isolation is only continuing to grow. CNN is now reporting that Russian state television group RT has just told its staffers that their United States-targeted network, RT America, is permanently shutting down. Earlier in the week, satellite television provider DirecTV announced that they would no longer be carrying the channel as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine; it is also difficult to imagine that there is much audience appetite in the United States for Putin apologia or new defenses of Russian war crimes, and Americans that still want those things can simply watch Fox News.
It's a heavy blow to Russia's state-sponsored propaganda network, but Putin still has powerful allies in this country willing to step forward in the kleptocracy's hour of need. While RT America is ceasing operations entirely, RT itself will be finding a new home after facing new sanctions from YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
Both Reuters and The New York Times are now reporting that RT will instead be bringing its programs to Rumble, a video site favored by the American far-right, neo-Nazis, and other groups unwilling to abide by anti-racism and anti-violence-promotion rules on the other sites.
Rumble is also rumored to be the engine that will power Donald Trump's alleged new Trump-focused far-right social media site—if the site actually comes to fruition and is not the transparent financial scam many observers suspect it to be.
The good news for pro-Putin Americans, then, is that a good chunk of all pro-Putin propaganda in this hemisphere will be available at a single far-right Nazi-promoting site. But it once again shows the lengths to which certain "conservatives" will go to back their favored delusional dictator during a time of war. No, not that delusional dictator, the other one. The one with the ever-swelling conference table. Trump would never sit at a table like that because it'd make his hands look small.