In response to disinformation and propaganda from Russian online media following the invasion of Ukraine, Russian media outlets such as Russia Today and Sputnik News were banned throughout Europe. To maintain viewership, many of these Russian outlets began to heavily promote their content on messaging services like Telegram. In this work, we study how 16 Russian media outlets interacted with and utilized 732 Telegram channels throughout 2022. Leveraging the foundational model MPNet, DP-means clustering, and Hawkes processes, we trace how narratives spread between news sites and Telegram channels. We show that news outlets not only propagate existing narratives through Telegram but that they source material from the messaging platform. For example, across the websites in our study, between 2.3% (ura.news) and 26.7% (ukraina.ru) of articles discussed content that originated/resulted from activity on Telegram. Finally, tracking the spread of individual topics, we measure the rate at which news outlets and Telegram channels disseminate content within the Russian media ecosystem, finding that websites like ura.news and Telegram channels such as @genshab are the most effective at disseminating their content.

翻译：针对乌克兰入侵事件后俄罗斯网络媒体散布的虚假信息和宣传，欧洲各国全面封禁了"今日俄罗斯"（Russia Today）和"卫星通讯社"（Sputnik News）等俄罗斯媒体机构。为维持受众覆盖，这些俄媒机构开始大力推广在Telegram等即时通讯平台上的内容传播。本研究通过分析16家俄罗斯媒体机构在2022年期间与732个Telegram频道的互动关系，利用基础模型MPNet、DP-means聚类算法和霍克斯过程（Hawkes processes），追踪叙事内容在新闻网站与Telegram频道间的传播路径。研究表明，新闻机构不仅通过Telegram传播既有叙事内容，更从该通讯平台获取原始素材。例如，研究覆盖的网站中，2.3%（ura.news）至26.7%（ukraina.ru）的文章内容源自或衍生于Telegram平台活动。最后，通过追踪特定话题的扩散过程，我们量化了新闻机构与Telegram频道在俄罗斯媒体生态系统中的内容传播效率，发现ura.news等网站及@genshab等Telegram频道的内容传播效能最为显著。