Russia’s disinformation efforts across Latin America have intensified over the last two years, partly aimed at sowing discord between the United States and its allies in the region, according to an American diplomatic cable and new report by watchdog groups.
The campaign is spearheaded by Kremlin-owned media outlets like Sputnik and RT, officials say, describing an effort to stoke anti-American sentiment, especially in Mexico, the world’s largest Spanish-speaking nation and Washington’s biggest trade partner.
In April 2024, American diplomats in Mexico City raised alarms over the “sudden and dramatic expansion” of RT in the country, according to an internal diplomatic cable titled “Mexico: RT’s Invasion” and reviewed by The New York Times.
“RT’s aggressive investment in Mexico and its strategy to build its credibility and undermine the United States, poses a threat to current popular perception,” the cable reads, adding, “mission Mexico needs more resources to counter RT’s well-funded efforts.”
The Russian Embassy in Mexico City denied that Moscow was spreading disinformation, calling Sputnik and RT, formerly called Russia Today, unbiased alternatives to American media.
The U.S. Embassy cable says the audience of “RT en Español” catapulted online, from 191,000 views on X in 2022 to 715 million a year later. With RT widely blocked in Europe and the United States, the network scaled up its presence in Latin America, a potential audience of some 670 million people.
The embassy cable partly blamed the “allegedly sympathetic abettors in President López Obrador’s administration” for the expansion of Kremlin-owned media outlets in Mexico.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term as Mexico’s president ended last October. The party that he founded, Morena, still governs Mexico and includes officials sympathetic to Russia, current and former American officials say.
Mr. López Obrador and Morena officials did not respond to requests for comment.
British and French officials raised concerns with Mexico’s foreign ministry about Russia’s activities, according to three people familiar with the discussions. The ministry declined to comment.
The cable’s findings were supported by a 2024 Justice Department investigation that uncovered a Russian government-sponsored influence campaign called Doppelgänger, targeting American citizens and Washington’s allies.
“The campaign intended to encourage ‘anti-American sentiment’ as well as to exacerbate confrontation between the United States and Mexico,” according to a Justice Department affidavit in the case, which closed down websites involved in the campaign.
While it is unclear whether the operation is still trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Mexico, Kremlin-sponsored media outlets continue to publish Spanish-language content discrediting the United States.
This year, former President Dmitri Medvedev accused Ukraine and the United States of recruiting Mexican and Colombian cartels to fight Russia, an accusation picked up by Spanish-language media in the region. That followed a similar accusation spread by the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, which was shared by several Morena politicians.
Those claims appeared to draw from the stories of Colombian military veterans who, largely driven by financial reasons, volunteered to fight for Ukraine.
One official who has regularly shared Russian government media content on social media is Jenaro Villamil, head of Mexico’s State Broadcasting System, which controls hundreds of TV and radio stations nationwide.
Mr. Villamil said that he shares news from various outlets and that his personal account does not represent the government.
Last year, he shared a Sputnik article linking the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president, adding: “another D.E.A. intervention in Latin America.” While a former freelance D.E.A. informant was linked to the killing, he had stopped working for the agency before then.
Across Latin America, RT has also held training sessions for journalists and students, according to a new investigation by the German Marshall Fund, a Washington-based research group, and Factchequeado, a nonprofit that monitors Spanish media.
During recent RT training for journalists in Venezuela, the room erupted into chants of “Long live Russia!” and “Long live Putin!” according to the investigation.
In Mexico, RT has built a partnership with the Journalists Club, an industry association that has received funding from Mexico’s Senate. The club has also hosted RT for training sessions.
The club’s biweekly magazine consistently publishes RT articles, with roughly 53 percent of its content from Kremlin-owned media outlets since April, according to the investigation.
Mouris Salloum George, the president of the club, said that the magazine started republishing Russian government media because RT approached it offering free content.
Some Western experts worry that Washington is outmatched in the information war, especially after the Trump administration moved to dismantle an office that counters disinformation and also Voice of America, the U.S.-run news agency founded to fight Nazi propaganda.
“This is the problem: You have the U.S. retreating from the information space globally, and in comes Russia,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
“There remains a bit of a Cold War mentality about Russia taking it to the U.S. in their own backyard because they feel like the U.S. does it to them and their so-called sphere of influence,” he said. “To gain influence, Latin America has long been seen as a priority for the Russians.”
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting.
Maria Abi-Habib is an investigative correspondent reporting on Latin America and is based in Mexico City.
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