The study says that Russia has launched "a very successful strategy of infiltrating Latin American societies with the help of its media - the Sputnik news agency and the Russia Today TV channel."
"The latter reaches 18 million people in ten Latin American countries with its content in Spanish, and on YouTube it has more than 1 billion views," the institute said.
The authors of the report announced a sharp increase in traffic to the channel's website after the start of the Russian special military operation. It is noted that the increase in attendance was almost 40 million in February 2022, while in December 2021 this figure averaged 21.5 million.
The report also talks about Russia's privileged relations with Venezuela, led by Nicolas Maduro, as well as the fact that Moscow provides Caracas with economic, financial and military assistance.
The Institute notes that part of this cooperation was the military exercises between Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela, which took place in July 2022, as well as on the territory of Venezuela as part of the International Army Games initiative.
"In any case, the weight of Russia's economic presence is not so significant, especially in relation to other players, such as China, the United States and the European Union. But its true goal is to win allies in order to oust the West - the United States and Europe - and claim its role as a world power, "the study argues.
Earlier it was reported that the deputy head of the EC for values and transparency, Vera Jourova, called for spending more money on the "fight against disinformation" due to the growing influence of Russian media, in particular RT, in the European Union, especially in Germany.