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：为应对乌克兰战争后俄罗斯网络媒体（如今日俄罗斯、卫星通讯社）散布的虚假信息与宣传，欧洲各国全面封禁了这些俄媒。为维持受众覆盖，众多俄方机构开始大力推广即时通讯平台Telegram上的内容。本研究追踪了2022年16家俄罗斯媒体机构如何与732个Telegram频道进行互动与内容利用。通过运用基础模型MPNet、DP-means聚类算法及霍克斯过程，我们揭示了叙事如何在新闻网站与Telegram频道间扩散。研究表明，新闻机构不仅通过Telegram传播既有叙事，更从该平台获取创作素材。例如，在本研究涉及的网站中，2.3%（ura.news）至26.7%（ukraina.ru）的文章所讨论内容源于Telegram平台活动。最后，通过追踪特定话题传播轨迹，我们测算了新闻机构与Telegram频道在俄罗斯媒体生态中的内容扩散速率，发现ura.news等网站及@genshab等频道具有最高效的内容传播能力。