Pravda.ru formerly Pravda Online, is a Russian internet news website established in 1999 and owned by Pravda.ru Holding headed by Vadim Gorshenin.
History
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the oldest Soviet paper founded in 1903, Pravda, split into three different papers. Significant members of the main editorial staff left Pravda to form the online news & opinion website Pravda.ru. Following a court case Pravda name was allowed to be used by both the newspaper owned by the Communist Party of Russia and the pro-Putin Pravda.ru ran by journalists associated with the defunct soviet Pravda. According to politologist Stanislav Belkovsky, Pravda.ru is controlled by Konstantin Kostin and his wife Olga Kostina. The Russian politician, Sergey Veremeenko also holds interests in Pravda.ru and Pravda International. In 2007 Pravda.ru was classified as a popular leftist, nationalist news website by the Federation of American Scientists. The former URL english.pravda.ru, giving access to the English language part of the web site, now redirects to the domain pravdareport.com. Pravda.ru has an online readership of about 258,000.
Controversy
The organisation has been accused of supporting the Russian government's position on various subjects both within and outside the country and also of producing neo-Soviet, Russian nationalist news and outright conspiracy theories. The media outlet which is a part of a larger pro-Kremlin media holding is said to have created an algorithm for vetting media outlets in terms of their pro-government ideological standing. Pravda.ru has been known to producetabloid style articles with outrageous claims in the headline, such as “Aliens forced Americans out from the Moon”, "Time machine built in Europe, Russian scientists say", “Time can be turned back”, “Alien and human skulls found on Mars”, "Nuclear strike hits Yemen", “Boriska, boy from Mars, says that all humans live eternally”, "Autotrophs: new kind of humans appears who neither drink nor eat", and “Nazi Germany achieved its technological advantage with aliens’ help”.
