Russia is reportedly warning it may impose restrictions on American media after the U.S. put pressure on a Kremlin-backed TV station.
The comments come after the Justice Department decided that the company that runs the U.S. version of RT, the Russian state-owned outlet, must register with the U.S. as a foreign agent. That would mean that all of their content would be labeled as propaganda from Moscow.
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“We can apply similar measures to American journalists, American media here, on Russian territory,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview with Russia’s NTV broadcaster, according to Reuters.
“We have never used Russian law in relation to foreign correspondents as a lever of pressure, or censorship, or some kind of political influence, never,” she said. “But this is a particular case.”
In a report Monday, RT blasted the edict as overreaching.
“The war the U.S. establishment wages with our journalists is dedicated to all the starry-eyed idealists who still believe in freedom of speech. Those who invented it, have buried it,” Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, said about the registration requirement.