Belarusian state TV says it planted ‘freelancers’ inside Current Time and handed over the names of more than 70 journalists to their home countries, mostly Russia — names that were already public
Employees of the Belarusian state television channel First Informational said they spent several years working with Alina Rudnitskaya, an editor at Current Time — the Russian-language TV and digital network run by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in cooperation with Voice of America — while posing as freelancers.
The channel aired the segment on the evening of August 27, and the Telegram channel News.by later published excerpts from it.
The segment focuses largely on Rudnitskaya, claiming she flew from Russia to European Union countries 60 times over eight years.
According to the segment, those involved in the scheme obtained “the names of all employees who work for various Current Time bureaus around the world.” The list included more than 70 people, many of whom had already been named on Current Time’s website.
First Informational said it handed over the employees’ names “to the countries whose citizenship they hold,” meaning mainly Russian citizens.
In May 2024, Belarusian propagandists tricked Lithuanian presidential candidate Giedrimas Jeglinskas into giving an interview by posing as Meduza journalists.
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