“In the age of misinformation, the line between fact and fiction is blurrier than ever.”
“For those of us working in video news, verification isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a necessity. It is how we protect the stories we help shape and how we earn and maintain trust in an increasingly chaotic information ecosystem,” Abu Dhabi-registered video news agency Viory posted on LinkedIn on April 9, 2026, offering training to help newsrooms and journalists sort fact from fiction.
The self-described “video news agency of the Global South” has delivered journalism training to multiple national press agencies across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
However, when it comes to Viory itself, the line between fact and fiction is very blurry indeed.
Bellingcat has found multiple links between the digital infrastructure of Viory and Ruptly news agency, a branch of sanctioned Russian propaganda outlet Russia Today, including shared IP addresses, a Viory-linked site using a digital security certificate registered to Ruptly, and Ruptly sending site performance data to Viory. While there have been previous reports on suspected links between the two outlets, our investigation adds new evidence about Viory’s ties to Ruptly media.
When contacted for comment, both Viory and Ruptly denied any connection with each other.
Composite Image created by Bellingcat.
‘Video News Agency of the Global South’
Viory’s main offering is raw video footage of news events provided via subscription. According to Viory, its clients include “major international news outlets, local media organisations, and independent creatives in more than 170 countries”.
If its own figures are to be believed, Viory was strikingly well established at its launch in November 2023, by which time it claimed to have a “pre-assembled team of over 150 full-time staff, and an established network of over 3,000 video journalists across the world”.
The name “Viory” is a trade name. The company’s legal name is Darpo Vision FZ LLC , according to its website, which also states that it is registered in Abu Dhabi. In August 2024, Darpo Vision FZ LLC filed for a trademark in the US for the name Viory, which was approved in December of 2025 .
As of May 2026, Bellingcat found press releases and news reports referencing at least 30 agreements between Viory and partners in more than 22 countries, as well as cooperation agreements with government agencies, training agreements with universities and regional journalism bodies.
This includes:
African Union of Broadcasting
Mali’s Office de radiodiffusion et de télévision du Mali
Democratic Republic of Congo’s Congolese Press Agency
Public Service Media Maldives
Namibian Broadcasting Corporation
Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation
Cambodia’s Ministry of Information
Media Office of the Government of Al Fujairah
Abu Dhabi University
University of Sharjah
Asia Media Summit
Viory also sponsored a glitzy event for its inaugural Global South Video News Awards in December 2025 at Abu Dhabi’s first-ever BRIDGE Summit .
Ruptly Revisited
Ruptly is a video news agency formerly based in Berlin and ultimately controlled by Russia Today (RT), which is owned by Russian state media company ANO TV-Novosti. ANO TV-Novosti has been on the EU sanctions list since December 2022 for spreading “pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation” and supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.
RT launched Ruptly, which operated in Berlin via a German-registered subsidiary in 2013, with the goal of “becom[ing] the go-to alternative resource in a highly concentrated market of professional news video footage, and to deliver coverage of stories that other agencies miss.”
Sanctions imposed on RT following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine choked off Ruptly’s source of funds in Germany, leading the German company to begin insolvency proceedings in October 2024. Ruptly continues to operate from Moscow as of 2026.
As with Viory, Ruptly’s main offering is providing raw news footage to subscribers around the world. It relies on a large network of international freelancers and stringers. In 2016 RT claimed that Ruptly had “surpassed” newswire services AFP and Reuters on YouTube, and was serving more than 600 media organisations in 45 countries.
Felix Huesmann of the German outlet RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND) , was the first to outline links between Ruptly and Viory while covering the insolvency proceedings of Ruptly. He found that Darpo Vision’s original details on the Abu Dhabi Creative Media Authority’s site included an email address [email protected] . It has not been confirmed who this email address belongs to; however, the username matches the first name initial and surname of Dinara Toktosunova, the managing director of Ruptly. When asked about this email address by Huesmann in 2024, Ruptly “explained that Toktosunova is focused on securing the future of the Ruptly team [in Moscow] and is not working anywhere else as a managing director.”The a…
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