The US State Department accused Russia this Friday of conducting covert operations designed to destabilise the government of Argentina and increase tensions between the South American country and its neighbours.
According to the communiqué, these acts are carried out through the Russian channel RT – Russia Today, the Russian state-owned media which is also accused of covert influence in other parts of the world, for example through platforms such as African Stream and Red, the latter based in Berlin.
RT is also accused by the US of using state funding to ‘secretly recruit and pay social media personalities in order to disseminate content aligned with Moscow’s interests’.
In the same statement, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, declared that RT had ceased to be simply a means of communication and had become ‘de facto an operational arm of the Russian intelligence apparatus’.
Moreover, earlier this month the US government announced measures including economic sanctions and potential criminal prosecution against the Russian channel for allegedly attempting to interfere in the upcoming US elections on 5 November.
In addition to its political influence activities, the US accused RT of participating in the financing of the war in Ukraine. According to US intelligence, Anton Anisimov, deputy editor-in-chief of RT and director of international broadcasting at Sputnik, led an online fund-raising platform aimed at supporting Russian troops in Ukraine. This would include the purchase of military equipment, sniper rifles, body armour and drones, some of which would come from China and Iran.
It is easy to understand why Russia is attempting to destabilise the new Argentine government of Javier Milei, author of a 180-degree geopolitical shift. During the almost 20 years of Kirchnerista socialism, the South American country was strongly aligned with the Cuba-Venezuela-China-Russia-Iran axis, which included, for example, the purchase of technology at excessively high prices, not being the best technology on the market but political negotiations.
From the beginning of his term, President Milei decided to bring Argentina closer to the American bloc and to stop most of the business that Kirchnerism had left pending with China and Russia, which clearly caused resentment among these countries.
The West must work together if it really wants to counter the influence of the socialist axis and its expansion into the developing world, and it is absolutely clear that Argentina, today, is the only country on the South American continent with a government that reflects and promotes Western values.
