“In the age of misinformation, the line between fact and fiction is blurrier than ever,” the Abu Dhabi-registered video news agency Viory declared in a LinkedIn post in April 2026, framing its mission around verification training and journalistic integrity. Positioned as a “video news agency of the Global South,” Viory has promoted itself as a provider of raw news footage and professional training for journalists and media organisations across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Yet an investigation by Bellingcat has found that questions surrounding Viory’s own digital foundations are becoming increasingly complex. The findings identify multiple technical and infrastructural links between Viory and the Russia-linked video news agency Ruptly, a subsidiary historically connected to the sanctioned Russian state media outlet RT.
Viory’s public-facing operations present a rapidly expanding media enterprise. Launched in November 2023 under its legal name Darpo Vision FZ LLC, the company says it has built a global network of thousands of video journalists and serves subscribers in more than 170 countries. It has also signed or announced dozens of agreements with media organisations, state broadcasters, universities, and regional institutions, including partnerships across Africa and Asia and cooperation with entities such as the African Union of Broadcasting, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, and Abu Dhabi University. By late 2025, Viory had also staged a high-profile awards event in Abu Dhabi celebrating what it called Global South video journalism.
Ruptly, meanwhile, operates in a markedly different context. Created in 2013 as a Berlin-based video news agency under RT, it has been part of a broader state media ecosystem linked to the Russian government. Following EU sanctions imposed on RT after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Ruptly’s German operations faced financial disruption, leading to insolvency proceedings in 2024. By 2026, the agency continued operating from Moscow, still distributing raw news footage to international subscribers through a network of freelancers and contributors.
It is within this backdrop that Bellingcat’s investigation begins to trace overlapping technical infrastructure between the two organisations. One of the most significant findings concerns a digital security certificate. The investigation found that Viory’s associated domain darpo.vision, registered under Darpo Vision FZ LLC, had been using a wildcard SSL certificate linked to ruptly.video. Security experts noted that such certificates require access to private cryptographic keys, typically restricted to those managing a site’s core infrastructure.
James Wilson, a software and networking engineer cited in the investigation, indicated that the presence of such a certificate suggests that whoever controlled darpo.vision likely had access to Ruptly’s SSL private key. While alternative explanations such as unauthorized access were theoretically possible, he noted that practical inconsistencies would normally trigger browser security alerts, making routine misuse unlikely.
Further technical overlaps were identified in shared IP address usage. According to VirusTotal data cited in the investigation, multiple IP addresses were simultaneously associated with both Viory and Ruptly domains between 2025 and 2026. These included addresses linked to viory.video alongside ruptly.video, ruptly.agency, and ruptly.tv. In several instances, the same infrastructure appeared to host domains from both organisations at overlapping times, suggesting a level of operational convergence that went beyond coincidence.
The investigation also highlights data flow connections between the two systems through Sentry, a platform used for tracking software performance and errors. Bellingcat found that Ruptly domains, including ruptly.agency and ruptly.video, were sending telemetry data to a Sentry project associated with viory.team. In some cases, authentication keys embedded in Ruptly pages appeared to direct data into Viory-linked monitoring systems.
Wilson noted that different Sentry keys were used across multiple instances, suggesting deliberate configuration rather than accidental reuse. He indicated that this pattern was inconsistent with casual copy-paste deployment and pointed instead to structured integration between the systems.
Additional evidence emerged from a development page hosted on a Viory subdomain. A test version of Viory’s front-end contained metadata referencing Ruptly in its page title and description, including language describing “Stream trending news | Ruptly.” The presence of Ruptly branding in a Viory testing environment was described by technical experts as consistent with reused templates or shared development resources, though the investigation notes it could not independently determine intent.
Other findings point to personnel and corporate overlaps. Early registration details linked to Darpo Vision reportedly included an email address resembling that of a senior Ruptly executive. The investigation also references analysis by OSINT For Ukraine suggesting movement of staff between the two organisations and similarities in platform structure and content delivery models.
Corporate records further complicate the picture. A Hong Kong-registered company initially incorporated under the name Ruptly Limited reportedly changed its name to Lotus Production Limited in September 2022, while remaining active and continuing to file reports as of 2025. These corporate transitions form part of a broader set of international business structures examined in the investigation.
At the same time, Viory has maintained that it operates independently. In responses to Bellingcat, the company stated that it has no connection with Ruptly and described suggestions of links based on shared digital infrastructure as inaccurate. Ruptly also denied any connection, declining to address specific technical findings in detail and characterising related questions as irrelevant.
Despite these denials, the investigation documents multiple layers of interaction between the two organisations’ digital ecosystems, spanning infrastructure, security certificates, telemetry systems, and development environments. Taken individually, each element presents limited proof of direct organisational control. However, as Bellingcat’s reporting outlines, the convergence of these technical signals forms a pattern that raises unresolved questions about how the two networks are structured and whether their operations intersect in ways not reflected in their public statements.
As Viory continues to expand its presence across international media markets and Ruptly maintains operations from Moscow under shifting geopolitical constraints, the investigation leaves a detailed record of shared digital traces embedded across their systems, preserved in infrastructure data, security configurations, and backend communications that continue to link the two agencies in the digital record.
