Russian media outlets malign RFE/RL
Since the middle of March, RFE/RL, its Russian Service and Current Time team have been the subjects of at least four negative articles and video programs on Russian media outlets.
On March 18, a television crew from NTV, a network often deployed to propagate defamation campaigns against independent journalists, civic activists, and members of the political opposition, sought out RFE/RL’s Moscow bureau administrator at her home, asking questions about her personal finances and property. Clips from this visit were included in a “documentary” on the Russian Service that aired on NTV on March 25. A second, similar “documentary” aired as part of a roundtable program on the Rossiya 1 television channel.
RFE/RL feels strongly that these actions are the latest in an intensifying string of harassment that warrants a communication of concern, in some form, from BBG and the U.S. State Department to the Russian Foreign Ministry.