These passages are too close for coincidence or parallel creation: they read as if the unnamed RT journalist copied the Mirror piece, then edited it enough to pass it off as an original production.

It is curious enough that RT — a state-funded broadcaster which boasts that it reports stories the mainstream media ignore — should have based its reporting on a mainstream UK tabloid.

The end of the RT article. Note the links to Twitter and Facebook, boasting (apparently without irony) that RT reports news which the mainstream media (MSM) do not.

More strikingly still, the one place in which the two articles substantially diverged was the end. The Mirror’s piece recounted what is known of the San Juan’s last hours, focusing on factual reports of a technical failure:

The German-built sub went missing on November 15 in the South Atlantic as it made its way back to the Navy base in Mar del Plata, with 43 men and one woman on board. The vessel last made contact with commanders to report that water had entered through its snorkel and caused a battery fault. Experts said the crew only had up to 10 days of oxygen if the sub remained intact under the sea. An explosion was later detected around the time and place where the submarine last made contact.

Rather than focusing on the technical details, RT’s final three paragraphs harked back 25 years to the war in the Falklands.

Britain and Argentina fought a short, savage war over the Falklands/Malvinas in 1982 when Argentina seized the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic. Then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent a task force to retake the islands. In the fighting that followed, 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen lost their lives, as did three Falkland Islanders. Argentina still claims the islands as its own. The issue has resurfaced in recent years as Britain has begun to explore possible offshore oilfields in the area. It may seem farfetched to suggest the British are involved in the submarine’s disappearance, but many Argentines remember how brutal the Brits can be. The ARA General Belgrano was sunk by the Royal Navy submarine Conqueror during the Falklands war, killing 323 Argentine sailors. The ship had been retreating.

The final paragraph, with its mention of “suggesting” a British involvement in the disaster, is particularly egregious. Neither the La Gaceta interview nor the Daily Mirror article made any such suggestion. La Gaceta did not voice any conclusions about the meaning of the messages: it described them as “mysterious”, and quoted Jésica Medina as saying, “I don’t know if they will have gone very close to the Malvinas; I don’t know what the political theme will be like. This is what he told us, and it’s what we have left.”

The insinuation, and the reference to the General Belgrano, appear unique to RT, which did not justify the comment by attributing it to an Argentinian source, but inserted it as a piece of editorial language.

RT’s reference to the sinking is unjustifiable by any standard of responsible journalism, as it provides no kind of relevant parallel to the loss of the San Juan which could shed light on her disappearance. The General Belgrano was sunk 25 years ago, at a time of war. Together with the claim that it shows “how brutal the Brits can be”, the reference exposes this as a piece of propaganda, aimed at stirring up negative sentiment against the UK — which had, in fact, helped in the search.

Conclusion

In sum, RT added the suggestion that the United Kingdom was involved in the sinking (while simultaneously distancing itself from the claim with the phrase “it may seem farfetched, but…”) and the inappropriate reference to the General Belgrano, while it omitted the dates of the WhatsApp messages, and of the alleged incident itself. It also mistranslated basic Spanish, adding a touch of drama (“fleeing”, “chasing them down”) where none was apparent in the original.

It also appears to have copied sections of the Daily Mirror article, lightly editing them to avoid outright plagiarism, but without attributing them. This argues poorly for RT’s editorial and journalistic standards and credibility, not least from the fact that its story is based on reporting by a UK tabloid.

Taken together, RT’s changes insinuated a possible link between the alleged helicopter incident, somewhere near the Falklands, on October 30, and the loss of the San Juan, over 400 km to the north, seventeen days, a port visit, and a military exercise later.

This is propaganda of a more subtle sort than straightforward lying. Rather than asserting a direct falsehood, it expresses a possibility which its sources had not raised, backed up with an inappropriate historical parallel, tendentious translations and the omission of key facts.

The aim appears to be to use the tragedy of Argentina’s missing submariners, lost on what should have been a routine mission while on their passage home, to re-open the old wound of the Falklands war, and portray the UK in as bad a light as possible.