Moscow today vowed to retaliate against French media in Russia after freezing the bank accounts of RT France, the French affiliate of Russian TV network RT, whose broadcasts have been suspended in the EU.
“The freezing of RT France’s accounts will lead to countermeasures against the French media in Russia (…) if the French authorities do not stop terrorizing Russian journalists,” warned a source in Russian diplomacy, cited by Russian agencies news Ria Novosti and TASS.
Yesterday, Friday, RT France unions had denounced the freezing of the channel’s accounts in France.
“With this sanction, almost 100 employees and around 50 journalists will probably find themselves unemployed,” the FO (Force ouvrière) and SNJ (Syndicat des journalistes) unions said in a statement to RT France, according to which the accounts “they were frozen by decision of the (French) state”.
“We received a notice from our bank on January 18 informing us that our bank accounts have been frozen at the request of the Directorate General of the Ministry of Finance,” a SNJ trade unionist told RT France today.
In response to a question from Agence France-Presse, the Ministry of Finance said that the assets of the channel were frozen in application of the most recent European sanctions and not at the direct initiative of the French state.
This article is originally published on insider.gr
