Russia threatens retaliation against U.S. Media following charges against RT

Russia has announced it will implement retaliatory measures against U.S. media organizations in response to recent U.S. charges against Russian media executives and the state-run broadcaster RT. The U.S. government has accused RT of attempting to influence the 2024 presidential election through a money-laundering scheme involving an American company.

On Wednesday, U.S. authorities charged two RT employees with money laundering. Officials allege that the scheme was designed to produce online content aimed at swaying the upcoming election. In addition to these charges, the U.S. Treasury and State Departments have imposed sanctions targeting RT’s top editor, Margarita Simonyan, as well as other network officials. Washington has accused Russia of trying to deepen political divisions in the U.S. and undermine support for American aid to Ukraine.

In response, Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, condemned the U.S. actions as an attempt to silence dissenting voices and to demonize Russia. “When the authorities resort to such primitive ways of influencing their voters, this is the decline of ‘liberal democracies’,” Zakharova said in a statement. She warned of forthcoming retaliatory measures, which could include restrictions on U.S. media operations in Russia.

Zakharova emphasized that any efforts by the U.S. to expel Russian journalists or create hostile working conditions for them would be met with equivalent actions against American media. “We warn that attempts to expel Russian journalists from the territory of the United States, create unacceptable conditions for their work or any other forms of obstruction of their activities, including with the use of visa tools, will become the basis for taking symmetrical and/or asymmetric retaliatory measures against the American media,” she said.

Reporters Without Borders ranks Russia 162nd out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom, while the United States is positioned 55th. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has increasingly curtailed independent journalism, forcing the closure of major independent news outlets and labeling many journalists and activists as “foreign agents.”

The crackdown has led to a significant reduction in the number of Western journalists operating in Russia. The arrest of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich in 2023 further prompted many Western news organizations to withdraw their reporters from the country, leaving a near-complete absence of U.S. correspondents in Russia.