A biography for Margarita Simonyanhasn’t been written yet.
“I don't understand why any country is given a chance to make its point of view seen and heard by the world, and Russia is not given that chance.”
“America had Russia wrapped around it little pinky through the whole '90s. We did everything you told us. And we were eager to do more and more. The whole nation - Russian nation was like, 'Tell us what else we can do to please you. We want to be like you. We love you.' And then in 1999, bam. You bomb Yugoslavia. And that was the end of it.”
“We do have our mistakes sometimes, like 'The New York Times' does, like everything does. We correct them.”
“The American Justice Department has left us with no choice. Our lawyers say that if we don't register as a foreign agent, the director of our company in America could be arrested, and the accounts of the company could be seized.”
“Believe me, most of the people in Russia are seeing the West as a threat.”
“When you read Western press, you probably get a feeling that all Russian press is censored, there's no freedom at all, we can't say whatever, which is absolutely, absolutely, completely untrue.”
“The information weapon, of course, is used in critical moments, and war is always a critical moment.”
“We would like to be the third-most-watched news channel in the U.K.”
“Not a single story on 'BBC World News' is any different from the British foreign policy.”
“You might not believe me, but I really don't like conspiracy theories.”
“One might have thought that Brexit would be a wake-up call for the American media. Yet, just as in the U.K. referendum, 'Russia' became the buzzword in the U.S. election that the political and media establishments thought would scare people into voting for the status quo.”
“We removed 'Russia Today' from the logo after many colleagues, also from foreign media, told us that it was diminishing our potential audience.”
“All of our anchors begin their shows with 'Hello from Moscow.'”
“I have two children, and I'm very, very peaceful.”
“I noticed that mainstream western TV channels, especially CNN and ABC, show the same thing.”
“When the world normalizes, everything is going to be fine with RT. When the U.S. and Russia get along again - and I don't see any deep reasons why we shouldn't get along... we are going to work normally like a normal news organization.”
“When the USSR collapsed, I was 11, and unlike many people, I don't miss it.”
“Russian children typically hear racist and ethnic slurs against Caucasus natives at home before hearing it on the streets.”
“When we were a quiet, little-noticed channel telling stories from Russia, our audience was negligible. When we started being really provocative... our audience started to grow.”
“Immigrants are not the real problem. The real problem is much more serious: intolerance and hatred of indigenous ethnic groups. You can prohibit immigration, but what can you do about non-Russian ethnic groups living in their native territories in Russia?”