Russia's embassy blasts US for pressuring Russian media

WASHINGTON - 11 January 2018: The United States continues "unacceptable practices of pressure on Russian media instead of mutually beneficial cooperation," the Russian news agency Tass reported on Thursday, quoting the Russian embassy in Washington.

"Today, on January 10, we learned that RIA Global, a company that generates content for Sputnik [news agency] will be able to continue its operation only after it is registered as a foreign agent," the embassy said.

"Such steps disrupt normal work of journalists as they act as grounds for various sorts of restrictions, we have witnessed when RT [television channel] was stripped of accreditation at the Congress."

"Russia has always been against any restrictions on the freedom of the mass media, including in the work of foreign media and journalists," the embassy stressed. "However we cannot say that about the United States and a number of its allies that continue unacceptable practices of pressure on Russian mass media instead of mutually beneficial cooperation. It has come to visa cancelation, expulsion of Russian journalists, frequent attempts of foreign security services to coopt them."