Putin perfectly understood the power of the media that helped propel his famously unpopular predecessor Boris Yeltsin into power in 1996. So the first thing he did after assuming the presidency in 2000 was to force all the major TV channels to submit to his will. Oligarch owners were either co-opted, jailed or exiled, and by 2006 most major Russian media were either directly or indirectly under Putin’s administration’s control.

RT’s coverage may seem shoddy, at times even comical, but it serves its propaganda function efficiently. Media failures over the Iraq War and the financial crisis have disenchanted audiences, making them cynical and distrustful. The cynicism, however, has made them credulous toward those who present themselves as critics of the “mainstream media”...

A South Korean non-governmental organization said Monday that it will launch a youth team in Ukraine this week to step up promotion of South Korea and its policy and culture in the European region. The digital public diplomacy team will be comprised of 100 local and Korean students. Its launch ceremony will be held at a university in Kiev, Ukraine on Friday, according to the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea.

Ankara and Moscow are doing a diplomatic two step together. Conspicuously left out in the cold in this dancing duo, are two major power blocks which traditionally Turkey considers vital to its security needs: The United States and the European Union. The meetings between the Russian President Putin and his Turkish counterpart indicates a willingness on both sides to further consolidate economic, diplomatic and most importantly, and no doubt, also military ties.

Mr. Bogachikhin was poking fun at the charge from Western governments, American and European, that RT is an agent of Kremlin policy and a tool directly used by President Vladimir V. Putin to undermine Western democracies — meddling in the recent American presidential election and, European security officials say, trying to do the same in the Netherlands, France and Germany, all of which vote later this year. But the West is not laughing.

Top Central and Eastern European diplomats came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to urge lawmakers to support nonmilitary and military means to counter Russian influence in the region. Representatives of Poland, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Ukraine accused Russia of waging hybrid warfare against them: cyberattacks, propaganda, threats of force and other means just shy of conventional warfare.