The British paper has included Margarita Simonyan in its list of the globe’s most influential people for 2025, mixing praise with propaganda clichés
RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has been included in the Financial Times’ list of the world’s most influential people for 2025, after years of “propaganda” slurs and criticism by the British outlet.
The FT released its latest annual ‘Influence List’ on Friday, grouping figures into creators, heroes, and leaders – with Simonyan among the leaders. The decision appeared to come as a surprise to her, given the paper’s long-standing alignment with Western foreign-policy narratives and its persistent anti-Russia framing.
“You’ll laugh, but the Financial Times has included me in its 2025 list of leaders,” Simonyan wrote on Telegram on Saturday. “They even included some funny text. The passage about my plans to ‘starve’ the entire world is especially good.”
Simonyan’s profile is accompanied by an essay from FT contributor Julia Ioffe, who mixes backhanded praise with outright insults. While noting that Simonyan built RT into a global media network “from the tender age of 25,” Ioffe describes her as “Vladimir Putin’s most fiercely loyal messenger, his Valkyrie of propaganda.” The article also misquotes Simonyan, taking several of her statements out of context.
Simonyan also noted that this year’s ‘leaders’ roster also includes British intelligence chief Blaise Metreweli, whose appointment drew scrutiny over reported family ties to a WWII Nazi collaborator; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, whose lobbying past sparked conflict-of-interest warnings; and New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, widely criticized for anti-Semitic rhetoric.
”Questionable company,” Simonyan quipped.
The FT – like many other mainstream Western outlets – has long portrayed Simonyan as central to what it labels “Russian state propaganda,” with RT as its vehicle. Western governments have echoed this view, imposing multiple sanctions on RT, blocking its operations in Germany, the UK, and France, freezing bank accounts, and surveilling staff. In 2023, the US accused RT of acting “on behalf of Russian intelligence” and imposed additional sanctions on the network and its leadership.
Simonyan has consistently dismissed and mocked Western allegations, arguing that RT presents perspectives excluded from Western media – including the truth about Nazism in Ukraine and crimes committed by the Kiev regime – and calling efforts to shut the network down “ridiculous.”
Last month, she said that RT will continue its work despite attempts by the West to silence it: “We have written, we are writing and we will write.”
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