RT Balkan commences broadcasting from Belgrade
RT Balkan, a television channel offering news, analysis, interviews, and documentaries in Serbian, has launched its broadcasts from Belgrade.
This on-air debut follows the successful launch of the RT Balkan multimedia portal in 2022, which has since gained significant popularity among Serbian audiences.
“I congratulate the entire RT Serbian team and all our viewers on this successful launch,” said RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan. “Despite sanctions and attempts to silence us, we are broadcasting here in Serbia, in Europe.”
Simonyan expressed her hope that the RT Balkan team would have the “courage and perseverance” needed to operate under the current climate of sanctions, censorship, and pressure from the US and its allies.
“We are proud to operate in the only European country where freedom of speech is still upheld – a concept frequently discussed in the West, but rarely practiced,” stated RT Balkan Editor-in-Chief Jelena Milincic. “We are grateful to Serbian and Russian politicians for enabling this, despite immense pressure from Western nations seeking to undermine the friendship between our peoples.”
According to Milincic, the channel employs a team of both seasoned and young journalists who “resist the dominant Western narrative.”
The channel’s flagship program, ‘Relativizacija’ (‘Relativization’), will be presented by Ljiljana Smajlovic, former head of the Serbian Journalists’ Association. The inaugural broadcast on Friday evening also included a guest appearance by acclaimed film director Emir Kusturica.
The US and EU repeatedly pressured Serbia to block RT Balkan’s launch. In 2023, James Rubin, head of the US government’s Global Engagement Center, urged Belgrade to shut down the outlet. Brussels similarly demanded that Belgrade restrict Russian media broadcasts and “align” with the EU’s sanctions against Moscow.
Serbia has maintained neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and has not joined NATO and the EU in imposing sanctions on Moscow.