A new satellite TV channel allows Alexei Navalny's videos to reach Russian audiences

[highplainsdem]

Source: NPR

PARIS — Starting Wednesday, Russians will be able to watch a new TV channel featuring political content that was previously banned from Russian airwaves.

The channel, called Russia's Future, is a joint venture between the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation and Reporters Without Borders. The channel is beamed out across Europe, the Middle East and Africa via the Hotbird satellite operated by the French company Eutelsat, and is part of a 13-channel bouquet called Svoboda Satellite.

Jim Phillipoff, the Svoboda Satellite project director, says 45% of Russians get their news from satellite television. "For more than 20 years, the Russian public has been bombarded with anti-Western, anti-Ukrainian, anti-democratic, pro-authoritarian propaganda," he says. "So this project, we think, is a very important step because it brings the Navalny group's great content — which is incredibly popular — to the Russian-speaking broadcast audience."

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Now, thanks in part to the efforts of his widow Yulia Navalnaya, who heads the ACF, Russians will for the first time be able to watch ACF reports and interviews on TV. At a press conference in Paris on Tuesday, along with representatives of Reporters Without Borders, Navalnaya said with the war in Ukraine came the shuttering of independent media and draconian censorship, which made it difficult for ACF to carry out and broadcast their corruption investigations.

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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/04/g-s1-70456/navalny-rsf-russia-tv-channel-launch

[hlthe2b]

1. His Oscar-winning documentary was heart-breaking. But, I love that his message is gettting out again.