US treatment of Russian journalists ‘unacceptable’ – Kremlin

The US has expelled an Izvestia cameraman who arrived to cover the presidential election

The detention of Russian journalists in the US violates the freedom of the press, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

A team from the newspaper Izvestia was detained and searched on Monday local time shortly after landing in Washington, DC where they arrived to cover the upcoming US presidential election. Cameraman Vladimir Borovikov was denied entry into the country and was forced to return to Russia. He said that he was questioned by police for nearly 10 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 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.”

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Borovikov has been 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,” he added.

Western countries have blacklisted multiple Russian media outlets, including RT, since 2022, citing “disinformation” related to the conflict in Ukraine. Moscow responded in kind, banning several Western news organizations, including state-funded broadcasters the BBC and the 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, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among others.