Russia vows to restrict US media in response to RT row

Russia is to impose domestic restrictions on media from the United States as a response to Washington's sanctions on the Russian state-funded outlet RT, the Kremlin said Friday.

Washington indicted two RT employees and slapped its top editors with sanctions on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to influence the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

"A symmetrical response is not possible. There is no state news agency in the US, and there is no state TV channel in the US," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the RIA Novosti news agency. "But there will certainly be measures here that will restrict their media disseminating their information."

Russia denies asserting influence, but seeks to put across its 'perspective'

Peskov maintains Russia is not seeking to interfere in the November presidential election, adding that Washington was trying to stymie Moscow's perspective on world affairs.

"Washington continues to try to put pressure on Russia, on Russian citizens, and even on the Russian media, which is engaged in informing both citizens inside our country and world public opinion about what is happening, from our perspective," the Kremlin spokesman added.

"Washington does not even accept that there should be options out there for anyone to get news from our perspective. This is nothing other than blatant pressure. We strongly condemn this stance as unacceptable."

Most US media outlets downsized or pulled their staff from Russia when the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Western countries have separately curbed access to RT, formerly known as Russia Today, and other Russian-owned news outlets, accusing them of spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda.

The 10 individuals and two entities sanctioned by the United States included RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and her deputy Elizaveta Brodskaia.

The US accused Simonyan of being "central" to Russia's efforts to proliferate its influence and accused Brodskaia of having reported directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

jsi/jcg (AFP, Reuters)