‘Unacceptable pressure’: Kremlin denounces US for targeting Russian media

Kremlin spokesman also says media censorship during Ukraine offensive is ‘justified’ as Russia is in a ‘state of war’.

The Kremlin has accused the United States of applying unacceptable pressure on Russian media after Washington announced sanctions against journalists and a state media network.

On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the US was trying to ensure that Russia’s perspective on world affairs was not available to people.

“Washington does not even accept that there should be options out there for anyone to get news from our perspective. This is nothing other than blatant pressure. We strongly condemn this stance as unacceptable,” he said.

The US Department of Justice on Thursday charged Russian TV contributor Dimitri Simes and his wife, Anastasia Simes, with schemes to violate US sanctions, a day after indicting two employees of Russian state broadcaster RT and sanctioning RT and its top editors, accusing them of trying to influence the US presidential election in November.

The 10 individuals and two entities sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury on Wednesday included RT Editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and her deputy, Elizaveta Brodskaia.

“Washington continues to try to put pressure on Russia, on Russian citizens and even on the Russian media, which is engaged in informing both citizens inside our country and world public opinion about what is happening, from our perspective,” Peskov said.

The Simeses were indicted for allegedly receiving more than $1m and a personal car and driver in exchange for work they did for Russia’s Channel One since June 2022. The network was sanctioned by the US in 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The indictments come at a time of renewed concern about Russian efforts to meddle in the upcoming US elections using online disinformation and propaganda.

Peskov said Moscow will impose its own restrictions within Russia on US media outlets in response.

“A symmetrical response is not possible. There is no state news agency in the US, and there is no state TV channel in the US,” Peskov told the state news agency RIA Novosti.

“But there will certainly be measures here that will restrict their media disseminating their information,” he said.

When asked about these restrictions in his daily news briefing, Peskov said Russia would take into account how the outlets covered the Ukraine conflict.

“Some of them … present information in a one-sided manner and do not shy away from fake news. We will take all this into account,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

Peskov did not say what restrictions Russia would introduce against US media.

Most US media outlets have already downsized or pulled their staff from Russia when Moscow launched its war in Ukraine due to laws targeting independent reporting on the conflict.

Meanwhile, Peskov justified Moscow’s unprecedented censorship during the war in a rare admission of Russia’s tight grip on information.

“In the state of war that we are in, restrictions are justified and censorship is also justified,” he said in separate remarks to the state news agency TASS.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies