Russia’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it was banning access inside Russia to the broadcasts of dozens of European Union media outlets in what it said was in response to similar EU ban on several Russian media outlets.
The European Union announced last month it was suspending the distribution of what it described as four “Kremlin-linked propaganda networks,” stripping them of their broadcasting rights in the bloc.
The ban applied to Voice of Europe, the RIA news agency and the Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspapers, it said.
Moscow hit back on Tuesday, announcing that 81 media outlets from 25 EU member states, as well as pan-European outlets, whose broadcasts would no longer be available on Russian territory, it said.
It accused the outlets of “systematically distributing inaccurate information” about what Russia describes as its special military operation in Ukraine.
The outlets affected by the Russian moveinclude: France’s Agence France-Presse news agency, Austria’s ORF state TV company, Ireland’s RTE broadcaster, and Spain’s EFE news agency as well as national broadcasters, newspapers, and Politico.
“The Russian Federation has repeatedly warned …that politically motivated harassment of domestic journalists and unjustified bans on Russian media in the EU will not go unanswered,” the foreign ministry said.
