BBC News Russian

BBC News Russian (Russian: BBC News Ру́сская слу́жба) – formerly BBC Russian Service (Russian: Ру́сская слу́жба Би-би-си́) is part of the BBC World Service's foreign language output.

The BBC's first Russian-language broadcast was a translation of a speech by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 23 June 1941.

The first programme of the Russian section of the BBC was hosted by Sonya (Betty) Horsfall on 24 March 1946.

However, during World War II there were sporadic broadcasts to the Soviet Union in Russian only. Most of these broadcasts were after 1942.

These were mainly short news bulletins or announcements relating to UK Foreign Office policy in Russian from 1943 onwards but often weeks or months apart.

In the Cold War-era broadcasts were severely jammed. Despite this, it tried to bring to listeners in Soviet Union information they were deprived of, including works of writers and dissidents who could not publish their work at home, such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Jamming finally stopped in the late 1980s, as perestroika took hold.

On 26 March 2011 the service stopped broadcasting on medium and shortwave, and now publishes and broadcasts on the internet only.

In March 2022, following the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, BBC News Russian suspended its operations inside Russia. On 2 March, after Russia enacted a wartime censorship law providing for sentences of up to 15 years for "discrediting" the armed forces, BBC management decided to urgently evacuate male staff holding Russian passports, fearing conscription; most left the country within two days. On 4 March, Roskomnadzor blocked the outlet's website, citing content allegedly containing "calls for mass disorder, extremism, and participation in unlawful mass events".