On this day 85 years ago, on October 29, 1929, Radio Moscow, now known to the world as Radio VR, began its first international broadcast, transmitting in German. It would soon begin broadcasting in French and English as well. 

The state-owned Russian broadcaster is launching the channel at the end of the month on Freeview channel 135 and Sky channel 512. It will broadcast from studios based in London’s Millbank and cover local and national UK stories. RT will air five hours of original programming every day including news, documentaries from local producers and chat shows, supported by programming from its main international channel.

These are tough times for Russia’s tourism industry with the numbers of visitors – especially from the West – nosediving in recent months.  That has sent hotels scrambling to attract guests from other parts of the globe – including Muslim nations in the Mideast and Asia that have placed no sanctions on Moscow over its intervention in Ukraine.

Russia also has ramped up its advances on the information warfare front, aiming a barrage of propaganda at foreigners, particularly at Russian speakers living in its “near abroad.”

Gordon B. Lankton, founder of the Museum of Russian Icons, will be honored by the Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership for his "commitment and contributions’’ to promoting relations between the United States and Russia and an improved understanding of the history of Russian icons.

According to a statement issued by the foreign ministry, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Morgulov Igor Vladimirovich and Pakistan’s Additional Secretary Europe Nadeem Riyaz led their respective sides in discussions that focused on a review of political, economic, parliamentary and cultural relations.

Russian propaganda, often masquerading as legitimate news, is disseminated through state-controlled media to confuse, obscure, and shift the debate about Putin and to legitimize Russian aggression abroad.

Today, as the world is going through one of the sharpest crises of international relations in recent years, the Cuban missile crisis — or, as Russians call it, "the Caribbean crisis" — may help us understand some very important things. The most pertinent of these is the escape from "historical inevitability."