Following the 2022 Putin-Xi "partnership without limits" declaration, this pilot study examines whether and how Russian and Chinese state-sponsored media align their strategic narratives in external communication. It focuses on two flagship external broadcasters, Russia's RT and China's CGTN, with particular attention to coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions on Russia.

The project takes a mixed-methods approach, combining computational analysis (natural-language processing, computer vision and LLM-based techniques) with multimodal critical discourse analysis of video content. It maps where Russian and Chinese strategic narratives converge and diverge, how those patterns change over time, and how alignment varies across languages and broadcasting contexts. The pilot is intended to lay the groundwork for a larger funded programme on Eurasian geopolitical narratives.