Kiev's stripping more than 100 Russian media outlets of accreditation at Ukraine's bodies of state power is “openly discriminatory.” It calls into question their interest in a peace settlement, said Russia’s Foreign Ministry and other top official.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) issued
recommendations to strip more than 100 Russian media outlets of
accreditation. The list includes TASS, Rossiya Segodnya and all
Russian TV channels except Dozhd, according to the service's
spokesperson Yelena Gitlyanskaya. The outlets will be without
accreditation until the end of the Ukrainian conflict.
"The openly discriminatory decision by Ukraine's parliament
to strip Russian mass media of accreditation at the bodies of
state power is an extension of the policy to clear the country's
media space of alternative points of view," the Russian
Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
It added this decision comes as a “backdrop to the latest
resolutions by the Normandy Quartet's leaders” (the Minsk
peace agreement) and “calls in question Kiev's interest in a
peace settlement."
READ MORE: ‘Stick to Minsk deal’: Russia slams Ukraine idea for EU peacekeepers
Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmytry Peskov said on Saturday
the Kremlin will talk to Kiev, pointing out the
“inadmissibility of such steps.” He also told TASS
Moscow won’t respond to Kiev’s actions by limiting the work of
Ukrainian media as “Russia is a country where media activity
is regulated by law, and where Russian and foreign journalists
have equal rights to obtain information.”
Kiev is continuing its fight against everything Russian, but this
limitation won’t prevent Russian journalists from “continuing
to objectively cover” the Ukrainian conflict, said head of
Russia’s Lower House of Parliament Committee for relations with
the CIS bloc, Leonid Slutsky, on Saturday.
Last April, Ukrainian authorities imposed severe restrictions on
Russian men, aged between 16 and 60, when attempting to enter
Ukraine without their families. The men are only allowed in if
they have close relatives, or an official invitation.
READ MORE: Terrified Debaltsevo residents leave shelters after Kiev troops’ pullout
Kiev’s ban on Russian journalists and mass media in Ukraine “is nothing but a systematic policy by the Ukrainian authorities abusing Ukraine's responsibilities in the spheres of human rights, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of mass media and access to information," said Konstantin Dolgov earlier. The Russian human right’s commissioner called the decision an “act of information war.” He asked the international community, particularly the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE), to react appropriately to the issue,
Earlier in February, 239 Ukrainian lawmakers voted in favor of suspending Russian journalists' accreditation until the conflict in eastern Ukraine ends.