Margarita Simonyan

“Being government funded does not necessarily mean being biased, just like being privately funded does not necessarily mean being independent.”

“The disgusting truth is that some of the less-educated families in the Caucasus hate and despise Russians simply because they are Russian, just as some less-educated Russian families feel the same way about people from the Caucasus.”

“Twitter has revealed some monstrous information in Congress: we spent money on our ad campaigns. Just as all the usual media organizations in the world do.”

“There is not a single international foreign TV channel that is doing something other than promotion of the values of the country that it is broadcasting from.”

“It's time to wake up to the reality that ignoring the genuine concerns of the 'fringe,' until it becomes the majority, is patently ridiculous. That the scapegoating of alternative opinions doesn't work.”

“Russia has never been very good at explaining itself to foreigners.”

“It's impossible to start making a weapon only when the war already started!”

“It is high time Western establishments stopped blaming Russia for all their problems.”

“To all the self-righteous defenders of 'freedom of speech' who oh-so-ardently proclaimed that FARA registration places no restrictions whatsoever on RT's journalistic work in the U.S.: Withdrawal of Congressional credentials speaks much louder than empty platitudes.”

“RT did not support Trump.”

“All of the people who work in the Russian government and Russian presidential administration, in this way or another, work for Vladimir Putin.”

“We congratulate American freedom of speech and all who still believe in it.”

“If we do have people appearing on the air live that are later found out to be Holocaust deniers or anything like that, we immediately put them onto a list of people who are forbidden from the air.”

“British media supported Hillary. No problem with that. No interference. Nothing. French media supported Hillary. No problem with that. Some Russian media supported Trump: 'Oh my God!'”

“We never make editorial decisions with people who are working closely with Vladimir Putin, unless you consider myself a person who is working closely with Vladimir Putin.”

“Apparently, all foreign media organisations have to follow an approved script of acceptable coverage, lest they are accused of interference. And make no mistake: we're not talking about neutrality. The only acceptable approach was, 'Support Clinton, attack Trump'.”

“When Russia is at war, we are, of course, on Russia's side.”

“There's a huge generational gap between the Soviet-school journalists and the new journalists. We were not brought up working on propaganda; we were brought up in the new Russia, working on the news.”

“Our job is to tell the world about Russia and to report world news from a Russian viewpoint.”

“The U.S. has made a lot of mistakes all over the world... look at Iraq. The country that makes such mistakes do not have the moral right to teach the world.”