Campaign group says Transport for London should hand back money earned from Russian broadcaster’s ads on tube and bus network

Transport for London has been criticised after it was revealed that the Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT spent up to £310,000 running an advertising campaign on the capital’s transport network.

RT, formerly known as Russia Today, ran three campaigns with TfL during 2017 – two in October across the London Underground network and another in November on bus shelters.

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The adverts overtly referenced allegations that the Russian government had interfered with elections or hacked the emails of political figures. They included posters saying: “Watch RT and find out who we are planning to hack next” and “Beware! A ‘propaganda bullhorn’ is advertising here”.

The value of the two campaigns on the tube was £110,000 and £170,000 respectively, according to a Freedom of Information response by TfL, and the bus shelter campaign was worth £30,000.

However, TfL said those were the going rates for such campaigns, and the exact amount spent by RT was commercially sensitive information.

TfL, which is chaired by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said it received one complaint about the advertising. A passenger wrote to say the transport network should “not allow Russia Today to advertise on the tube given their role in trying to influence western democratic elections for the benefit of the Russian government”.

In late November, City Hall said Khan had asked TfL to look again at whether the advertisements breached a regulation barring overtly political adverts and whether the policy should be updated to address deliberately provocative advertising.

The figures came to light after an FoI request by Best for Britain, a pro-EU campaign group that has highlighted alleged Russian interference in UK democracy.

The group’s chief executive, Eloise Todd, said she believed RT should be banned from advertising on tubes and buses.

“TfL has taken over three hundred grand from Putin’s propaganda mouthpiece and RT and its cronies,” she said. “While Britain faces cyber-attacks, this so-called balanced TV station pumps out lies dressed up as news. We should be utterly ashamed that TfL has taken this cash and it should hand it back.”

Last month Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland, faced a backlash after he launched a chatshow on RT. He insisted he would have editorial control over the show.

Dozens of MPs from across the spectrum have appeared on RT, which has paid substantial fees to many politicians. Those who have been paid fees include the David Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, and Labour’s Rosie Duffield and Chris Williamson.

The US Department of Justice has recently ordered RT to register as a “foreign agent”, and Theresa May has accused Russia of “deploying its state-run media organisations to plant fake stories and Photoshopped images in an attempt to sow discord in the west.”

The UK channel has a small average weekly audience of around 629,000, compared with the 8.5 million who watch BBC News. Since 2005, Ofcom has ruled 14 times that RT breached the broadcasting code in Britain, including on issues such as due impartiality and graphic images.

In October, Twitter announced it would stop taking advertising from all accounts owned by RT and the Russian government-controlled Sputnik news agency, citing a report by the US intelligence community on the Russian government’s influence on the US presidential election. RT called Twitter’s statement “groundless and greatly misleading”.

A TfL spokesperson said: “RT is licensed to operate in the UK by Ofcom but, in light of the recent controversy surrounding RT, the mayor has asked TfL to look again at whether the advertisements have breached the existing policy and if the policy should be updated to address this type of advertising in the future.”