RT (Russia Today) will register as a foreign agent in the US, according to its editor in chief Margarita Simonyan.
The move follows a demand by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) for RT America take such an action under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It gave the broadcaster a deadline of Monday, November 13 to do so.
Commenting on the development and quoted on RT’s site, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: “We’ve indeed prepared the retaliatory measures based on Russian legislation.
“There’s an understanding that the implementation of the retaliatory measures will start next week.
“They have understood, in Washington in particular, the American establishment, that they could not keep up with this competition, let alone win it.
“They cannot keep up already as RT, Sputnik, RIA Novosti, VGTRK, TASS have truly begun to win in many information fields.”
Meanwhile, Simonyan also said that RT America would challenge the decision in court.
“We believe that the demand does not only go against the law, and we will prove it in court – the demand is discriminative, it contradicts both the democracy and freedom of speech principles.
“It deprives us of fair competition with other international channels, which are not registered as foreign agents.”
At the same time, the Washington Post quoted an assessment by US intelligence agencies on RT America made in January this year. It described the service as “a Kremlin-financed channel operated from within the United States, (which) has substantially expanded its repertoire of programming that highlights criticism of alleged US shortcomings in democracy and civil liberties”.
It also said that RT America “has positioned itself as a domestic US channel and has deliberately sought to obscure any legal ties to the Russian government,” but behind the scenes, “The Kremlin staffs RT and closely supervises RT’s coverage, recruiting people who can convey Russian strategic messaging because of their ideological beliefs.”
