Kremlin summons U.S. media outlet heads, may retaliate for media bans abroad

The Russian Foreign Ministry has called all heads of U.S. media outlets in Moscow to a meeting next Monday to discuss “hostile” treatment of Russian media abroad.

Russia maintains that Western countries sympathetic to Ukraine have unfairly restricted or blocked its media sources in their countries. The American channel of RT, a state-controlled international TV network, shut down early March after sanctions cut off its funding.

"If the work of the Russian media - operators and journalists - is not normalized in the United States, the most stringent measures will inevitably follow," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced Friday.

"To this end, on Monday, June 6, the heads of the Moscow offices of all American media will be invited to the press centre of the Russian Foreign Ministry to explain to them the consequences of their government's hostile line in the media sphere," she added.

"We look forward to it."

Moscow has retaliated to foreign media restrictions with their own, like a bill that passed last month that gives prosecutors the power to shut down foreign media bureaus in Moscow if a Western country has ben “unfriendly” to Russian media, reports U.S. News and World Report.

The Biden administration condemned Moscow’s call for U.S. media outlets and said it supports access to media and internet for Russians against censorship from their own government.

"The Kremlin is engaged in a full assault on media freedom, access to information, and the truth," a State Department spokesperson said told U.S. News via email.

Russia has clamped down on its citizens’ access to outside sources. Roskomnadzor, its censorship bureau, has blocked Facebook and Instagram in the country and feuded with Google over “false” ads about the Ukraine invasion.