Russia threatens US media with retaliatory restrictions

American media outlets could soon see new operational barriers in Russia as punishment for U.S. scrutiny over Russian state-funded outlet RT, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry told Russian broadcaster NTV on Sunday.

The U.S.’s oversight and pressure on RT gives Russia the right to retaliate in kind, Maria Zakharova insisted, citing a Russian law dating back to 1991, according to Reuters.

“Everything that Russian journalists and the RT station are subject to on U.S. soil, after we qualified it as restriction of their activities, we can apply similar measures to American journalists, American media here, on Russian territory,” Zakharova said.

In a report released in January, U.S. intelligence officials accused RT of being part of a propaganda machine that sought to help the Kremlin influence U.S. politics. The report was part of an investigation into Russian meddling in last November’s U.S. presidential election campaign.

Zakharova added that it didn’t matter if the targeted U.S. media outlets were privately or publicly funded, and did not specify which U.S. news organizations would be affected.

Original Article
Source: politico.eu
Author:  Joanna Plucinska