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Tigran Keosayan, the sanctioned Russian propagandist, has gone into a coma and has been declared “clinically dead.”

Keosayan’s wife, Margarita Simonyan, 44, who heads the slavish Russia Today international media empire, revealed his condition in a Telegram post after rumors swept Moscow.

There was speculation that Simonyan’s husband could have been the target of a Ukrainian military intelligence death squad, but she asserted that his condition was a result of heart weakness.

“I didn’t want to [say anything] until the very end, but since reporters have already started calling, I’ll write [it] myself,” she wrote in the post. “My husband, Tigran Keosayan, survived clinical death and is in a coma.”

“As many people know, he has had a very sick heart for a long time,” she added. “I don’t know how to write circles in intensive care and take selfies of my sobs, so please forgive me for not writing on social networks,...

A still frame from a broadcast on Russia-back news and opinion channel Rt.

The U.S. State Department on Friday said it was imposing more sanctions on Russia-backed international broadcaster Rt amid concerns that the news outlet is fundraising on behalf of a widely-criticized military effort.

Specifically, officials with the State Department said Rt (formerly Russia Today) had operated online fundraisers that generated money used by the Russian military to procure weapons and other equipment for its ongoing combat action in Ukraine.

For more than two years, American officials have criticized Rt for running a propaganda campaign that was largely favorable to Russia’s violent invasion of Ukraine. The accusations lobbed against Rt this week are among the first to accuse the outlet of providing direct and material support to government forces beyond the typical scope of a TV broadcaster.

“Rt wants its new covert intelligence capabilities, like its longstanding propaganda disinformation efforts,...

Just days after the Russian blockbuster “The Master and Margarita” surged to the top of the domestic box office, Kremlin cronies, pro-war propagandists and an army of online trolls have waged a campaign to discredit the film and its director, Michael Lockshin, a U.S. citizen who was raised in the Soviet Union and has been outspoken in his opposition to the war in Ukraine.

A source close to the film, who asked not to be named out of fear of potential repercussions, tells Variety that the movie’s staggering success and pointed critique of authoritarian rule has struck a nerve in right-wing circles at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin has cracked down on any form of dissent.

“The propagandists are both envious and also hateful that a movie with an anti-censorship, anti-totalitarian, anti-war message is getting so much popularity, that they have doubled down,” the source said.

Connecting the seemingly infinite threads of online trolling, Russian subterfuge and the astonishing evolution of American politics has become a favorite past-time of impassioned intellectuals raging against the Trump administration. In trying to pinpoint all the significant factors that led to Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory, some have identified Russia’s interest in American affairs as the key to understanding how we got to where we are today. As Alex Gibney lays out in his new HBO docuseries “Agents of Chaos,” that’s not a specious argument; there is ample evidence that the combination of Russian motivation to campaign against Hillary Clinton combined with Trump’s personal interest in forging Russian relations merged at the right time to catastrophic ends. And yet, “Agents of Chaos” runs into the same problem as most attempts to explain this perfect storm of interests, namely: it is extremely difficult to explain every connection of...

HBO has the fix for television viewers with an insatiable appetite for insight on Russia’s interference with the United States’ 2016 presidential election.

That fix is titled “Agents of Chaos,” an upcoming two-part documentary from Alex Gibney that will premiere on September 23. HBO unveiled the trailer for the documentary on Monday and though the project covers well-trod territory, “Agents of Chaos” promises to shine a new light on the political controversy.

Per HBO, “Agents of Chaos” is a product of years of reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election. With never-before-seen footage inside the Russian troll farms and videos unearthed from the Russian deep web, the film digs deep into the sophisticated plans to undermine democracy, raising the alarm for the American public, but also proving that these “agents of chaos” weren’t Russians alone; they were also key players in the United States who, through venality, corruption or circumstance,...

Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election is examined in the new trailer for Agents of Chaos, Alex Gibney’s two-part HBO documentary out September 23rd.

Ahead of the upcoming 2020 election, the film aims to interpret what really happened in 2016, untangling all the conspiracies, confusion and public reaction. In the trailer, Russian President Vladimir Putin is asked if his country is attempting to influence the 2016 election. “Here, I’ll tell you a secret,” he says. “Yes, we will absolutely be doing that.”

The film features previously unseen footage captured inside...