(Reuters) – The West is openly persecuting Russian journalists, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on Monday, days after Moscow banned dozens of U.S. journalists from entering the country.
“In order to hide from inconvenient facts, from truthful information, the West, which considers itself the standard of freedom, has launched an open persecution against Russian correspondents,” Putin told the Mongolian newspaper Onoodor on the eve of his visit to the country, according to a transcript provided on the Kremlin’s website.
His remarks come after Moscow said on Wednesday it was banning entry to Russia for 92 U.S. citizens, including journalists, lawyers, and the heads of what it said were key military-industrial firms, over what it described as Washington’s Russophobic stance.
They also follow years of the Kremlin’s suppression of independent media and Moscow’s swift blocking of dissenting voices in Russian-language media outlets at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Putin said that in Russia, media are free.
“The only requirement for them is compliance with Russian legislation,” he said. “Foreign correspondents accredited in our country should understand this.”
Russia has frequently accused Western countries of imposing unfair restrictions on its media abroad, including bans on some state-backed news outlets.
Putin told the Mongolian newspaper that Russian journalists face “direct censorship” in almost all Western countries.
“The only thing our media do is to convincingly convey the Russian point of view on current modern problems and processes taking place in the world,” Putin said.
In May, Russian lawmakers passed a bill giving prosecutors powers to shut foreign media bureaus in Moscow if a Western country has been “unfriendly” to Russian media.
Washington has imposed sanctions against some state-run Russian TV stations, which it says have spread disinformation to bolster Russia’s war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by; Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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