Sochi, (New Ziana) – Russian television channel, RT, said on Saturday it planned to expand its footprint in Africa to offer an alternative viewpoint to the western media.

Lately, the television channel has been shut down in the West, accused of being a propaganda mouthpiece for the Russian government.

Ahead of this month’s elections in the US, it was also accused of meddling in the polls in support of eventual winner, former President Donald Trump.

But RT editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, told a Russia-Africa Foreign Affairs Ministers Partnership Forum here, the West’s crackdown on the channel was motivated by fear of the alternative viewpoint it offered to that of the western mainstream media.

Labelling RT’s news content and programming as Russian government propaganda, she said, was a mere ruse used by the West to shut off alternative media voices that challenged its narrative on global affairs.

“The western media has been part of the instruments of mass destruction of the West, and feels challenged if an alternative narrative is offered,” she said.

The crackdown on RT in the West has taken the form of stopping its broadcasts and de-registering its journalists in Europe, the US and Canada.

Simonyan said this had opened an opportunity for RT to expand its footprint in Africa and elsewhere in the world.

The television channel has opened news bureaus in a number of African countries, and also plans to broadcast in local languages on the continent, she said.

Already, she said, RT had over 200 million viewers in Francphone Africa alone, while its sister agency, Sputnik, had over 600 million on the continent.

Simonyan said RT planned to expand its network further in Africa, a place demographics indicate holds great potential in future.

New Ziana