The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and Reporters Without Borders on Tuesday praised the launch of a television channel that aims to bypass censorship in Russia and preserve the Kremlin critic's legacy.
The channel, called Future of Russia, will be broadcast via a free-to-air satellite platform run by the press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, known by its French abbreviation RSF.
Navalny's team hopes to get greater exposure and better reach with the help of the satellite broadcasts, which will feature content that the team produces for their YouTube channels in exile.
"I think it will be a long collaboration," Yulia Navalnaya told reporters in a short statement in Paris.
She said Navalny's team was doing "our best" to keep reaching Russians on YouTube, but the Kremlin has often tried to block the Western platform.
"There is almost full censorship in Russia, and under a dictatorship it is very difficult to spread information," she said.
Since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has outlawed all forms of public dissent and banned independent media and Western social media.
"We think it's really important that we are able to reach the Russian population as much as we can," said RSF head Thibaut Bruttin.
The channel will launch on Wednesday, June 4, the day Navalny would have turned 49.
The charismatic Navalny, Putin's main opponent, suddenly died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024. His family and supporters say he was killed on orders from Putin.
Jim Phillipoff, project director of Svoboda Satellite at RSF, said the channel was important because it was bringing the content produced by Navalny's team to Russian-speaking broadcast audiences.
He described the Navalny team as "pioneers" in countering years of Kremlin propaganda that combines "the glitz and glamor of western television" with Soviet-style messaging.
"There's virtually no way to significantly penetrate the traditional television space in Russia except by satellite," Phillipoff added.
Approximately 45% of Russians use satellite signals to watch television, he noted.
With all top Kremlin critics either behind bars or in exile, Navalny's legacy has been fading in Russia.
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