US treatment of Russian journalists ‘unacceptable’ – Kremlin
The detention of Russian journalists in the US violates the freedom of the press, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. He was commenting after a group of reporters from the Izvestia newspaper was detained and questioned after arriving in Washington DC earlier this week.
A team from the Russian outlet was held and searched on Monday shortly after landing in the US capital, where they had arrived to cover the upcoming presidential election. Cameraman Vladimir Borovikov was denied entry into the country and was forced to return to Russia. He said he was questioned by police for nearly ten hours.
“Such an attitude towards journalists does not paint the US authorities in a positive light,” Peskov said in a press briefing on Tuesday, adding that the reporters had the necessary documents to work in the US. “Such treatment of journalists goes against the freedom of the press. For us, this is unacceptable.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has accused Washington of employing “repressive” methods to thwart the spreading of “inconvenient information.”
Borovikov was expelled without any explanation, Izvestia director Vladimir Tyulin said. “From now on, every [reporter] traveling to the US must know that a trip is like a roulette: even if you have a visa, you can still be thrown behind bars and kicked out of the country.”
Western countries have blacklisted multiple Russian media outlets, including RT, since 2022, citing ‘disinformation’ related to the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has responded in kind, banning several Western news organizations, including state-funded broadcasters BBC and Voice of America.
In August, Russia permanently barred more than 90 American citizens from entering the country, citing “fake claims about Russia and its armed forces, and engaged in using propaganda to cover Washington’s hybrid war.” The ban affected journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, among others.
