"Sputnik is a modern news outlet that differs from other media in its angle and understanding of the world," the news agency's editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, said at the launch.

Sputnik's journalists and editors are headquartered in Tallinn. They will provide coverage of international and local events and offer opinions on current affairs. Sputnik said its new Estonian website will carry a variety of multimedia content, including infographics, video, photo reports, live streams and online polls, analysis, interviews, and expert reviews.

Sputnik is part of the Russian state-held news network Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), led by Dmitry Kiselyov, one of the people on the EU sanctions list for being a "central figure of the government propaganda supporting the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine."

Latvia is thinking about imposing sanctions on Sputnik.

"The launch of the Latvian version of Sputnik once again demonstrates Russia's attempts to disseminate its propaganda in Latvia's information space," Latvian Security Police spokeswoman Liga Petersone said a week ago.

Rossiya Segodnya is considered the main propaganda tool of the Kremlin aimed toward the West.

Sputnik runs round-the-clock newswires in English, Arabic, Spanish and Chinese.