Russians turn to the BBC for news on Ukraine war to dodge Kremlin's grip on broadcasts

The BBC has reported a surge of people in Russia turning to its news to get ‘factual independent information’ about the war.

With the Kremlin exerting tight control over what people see, the broadcaster says millions of Russians have accessed its reports.

The BBC said the audience for its Russian language website ‘more than tripled’ in a week to 10.7million. 

It came as Russian state-backed channel RT disappeared off British TV sets yesterday, following EU sanctions.

The BBC also said last night that to make sure its news was available in Ukraine and Russia, it had launched two new shortwave frequencies in the region.

Director-General Tim Davie said ‘there is a clear need for factual and independent news people can trust’.

The BBC also said the number of people visiting bbc.com in Russia last week was up 252 per cent to 423,000 last week.

It added the ‘live page’ in Russian about the invasion was the most visited site across all of the BBC World Service’s non-English language services getting 5.3 million views.

BC Broadcasting House in London. The corporation says the audience for its Russian language website has ‘more than tripled’

A rocket fragment lies on the ground next to a building of Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) after a rocket attack in Kharkiv on Wednesday

The Ukrainian language site also doubled its year-to-date audience, reaching 3.9m in the past week, while the audience to bbc.com in the besieged country leaped 154 per cent.

Mr Davie said: ‘It’s often said truth is the first casualty of war.

‘In a conflict where disinformation and propaganda is rife, there is a clear need for factual and independent news people can trust – and in a significant development, millions more Russians are turning to the BBC.

‘We will continue giving the Russian people access to the truth, however we can.’

Despite the fact it has been taken off air, Ofcom revealed yesterday afternoon that it was launching a further 12 new investigations into the channel over its coverage of the Ukraine war.

This takes the total to 27, after the media regulator launched 15 investigations earlier in the week.

Ofcom said it was ‘very concerned’ by the volume of programmes ‘raising potential issues’ and as it carried out its investigations it was ‘considering whether RT should retain a UK licence’.

RT disappeared off Sky, Freeview and Freesat yesterday as the company which operates the satellite system which broadcasts it is based in Luxembourg, which is following the EU’s ban on the channel.

On Sunday, Boris Johnson said the channel had been ‘peddling’ content that was ‘doing a lot of damage to the truth’ adding that Ofcom should look at whether it was ‘infringing the rules of this country’.