The US has sanctioned the leading Russian TV services Channel One, Rossiya-1 and NTV, which are owned or controlled by the Russian state or owned by one of President Putin’s closest allies.
In a background White House press call, a senior administration official on the US and G7 Actions to impose additional severe costs for Putin’s War against Ukraine said: “and, you know, the reality is: Western companies were among the top advertisers on these stations last year — well above $300 million worth of advertising. A lot of these advertisers have announced since the invasion that they’re going to cut their business activity with these stations, but we want to make sure that decision endures and just send a broader signal that US companies should not be in the business of funding Russian propaganda”.
They added: “The other element of this sanction is that Russian TV stations, in many cases, rely on Western technology to broadcast the propaganda. And that’s what I was referring to when I mentioned the video cameras, the microphones, the controls for digital sound, lighting equipment, software servers. Russia can try to produce these components domestically. But the idea here is to make that commercially difficult, unprofitable, put more of the burden on the Russian state. And we’re not going to be in the business of helping them broadcast some of the lies and the deceit that you hear from Putin every day”.
