I'd recommend the following for reading on RT and how the Russian government owned outlet utilizes propaganda in a "soft" way: https://academic.oup.com/joc/article/70/5/623/5912109 . I'd also recommend reading https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464884920941967 for an analysis on how RT handled the 2018 Skripal poisonings. Even more disturbing is their MH17 coverage.