EPAMargarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of state media outlet RT, is among the Russian media managers sanctioned by the US for allegedly interfering in the 2024 presidential election.
The 44-year-old has been described as the Kremlin’s top propagandist and ideologue, almost more Putinist than the Russian president himself.
Ms Simonyan responded to her name appearing in the US Treasury’s sanctions list this week. “Oh, they woke up,” she said on X. In reference to other RT employees on the list, she stated: “Well done, team.”
Her views towards the West are perhaps best summarised by comments in her last interview with the BBC, in March, as Mr Putin prepared to secure a fifth term as president in a largely uncontested election.
Asked whether there was a serious challenger, she replied: “Is there a need for a serious opponent? Why? We are not like you.
“And we don’t like you much, really.”
Ms Simonyan was born in the Krasnodar region of Russia into an Armenian family. Her academic achievements helped her gain a place on a prestigious exchange programme to the US, and she arrived in New Hampshire in 1995.
She later returned to Russia and became a TV journalist.
Her rise to prominence came in 2004, when she reported on the Beslan school siege by Chechen militants. It ended after three days with the bloody state response that left hundreds dead, including 186 children.
For Ms Simonyan it led to rapid advancement. Soon after, she was chosen, aged 25, to create and lead the international network Russia Today, later rebranded as RT.
From there, over two decades, she has become an outspoken critic of the West and a staunch supporter of Mr Putin, and has presided over a network that has grown from infancy into what the US describes as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet” central to alleged attempts to disrupt its presidential election.
As the years have gone by, both her own rhetoric and that of her channel have toughened.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, as Russia’s relationship with the West began to deteriorate, the network started to face accusations that it was spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda.
In 2014, after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and occupied parts of the east of Ukraine, it became openly hostile both towards Ukraine and the West.
It began referring to the democratically-elected government in Ukraine as the “Kyiv regime” and accused Western nations of instigating the country’s 2014 revolution, and of trying to undermine or even destroy Russia.
But Ms Simonyan is not just at the head of Russia’s external propaganda operation – she is also heavily involved in internal messaging and regularly appears on Russian political TV talk shows.
Then came Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After years of threats, the UK finally banned her channel. In Russia many top journalists and editors resigned, in what appeared to be a mass exodus in opposition to the war.
Ms Simonyan accused former colleagues – and anyone else opposed to the war – of “not really being Russian”.
She played a central role in one of the biggest spy stories of the Ukraine war, publishing a leaked recording of German air force officers discussing long-range weapons that could be given to Ukraine and how they could be used.
Her public views are now indistinguishable from Kremlin policy and regularly go as far as calling for violence against Russia’s enemies.
She has pushed the Kremlin line that Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions should hold referendums, “and let people stay with those they want to stay with. It’s fair”.
And she has called for Russian opposition figures to be dealt with “by hanging”, and suggested “sending the troops” further into Europe.
