The State Duma of Russia created a commission to investigate cases of interference by foreign states in the internal affairs of the country. The body consists of 12 deputies: six from United Russia and two from other factions - the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and Just Russia. They will interrupt their vacation in order to start work immediately.

“We see how“ Get up, Moscow! ”Statements, calls - on all state channels of a number of countries — all this speaks of interference in the affairs of the Russian Federation. We cannot allow this. In this regard, it was decided to create a State Duma commission to investigate the interference of foreign states in the affairs of our country, ”said Speaker of the Lower House Vyacheslav Volodin.

He stressed that the materials that the commission will develop can subsequently be transferred to law enforcement agencies. The conclusions themselves can be made in the framework of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

“And also to send their proposals to a number of countries that do not just sin, but cynically violate our sovereignty, try to interfere in the affairs of the Russian Federation, and carry out actions incompatible with the laws of our country or with international rules and norms,” Volodin emphasized.

In the future, the achievements of this commission can be used to amend the legislation. The creation of such a body was supported by the leaders of the factions, including the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov and LDPR chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

The first meeting of the commission will be held on August 23.

To gallery page

“The US Embassy is involved in this activity”

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that the foreign ministry would discuss with the US and German authorities the interference of diplomatic representatives and media representatives of these countries in Russia's internal affairs.

“As before the Saturday walks, the US embassy was actively involved in all this activity both in a closed format, we’ll tell them about it separately, and in the open, I can tell about it now,” she said on the program “Sunday evening with Vladimir Solovyov "on the channel" Russia 1 "on August 4.

Zakharova noted that the US Embassy in social networks published the route of the uncoordinated rally, describing the planned events in detail and finally urging citizens to avoid participating in it.

“But, as we understand it, 90% of the information just urged people to join this event,” she emphasized.

Zakharova also said that some media outlets took part in the intervention, in particular the Russian-speaking unit of the German television channel with state funding Deutsche Welle.

“I think this is a phenomenal flaw in the Western media and journalists when the Deutsche Welle in Russian publishes an appeal:“ Muscovites, go out, ”“ Moscow, go out. ” Exactly this way, as if they are covering with anti-journalism what is happening in our country, ”the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

For comparison, Andrei Isaev, the first deputy head of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, proposed to imagine what would happen if the RT channel or Sputnik agency issued the calls “Berlin, go out” or “Paris, go out”.

“Placing on the website of the US Embassy collection points for unauthorized actions in Moscow, direct calls through state channels - to the Voice of America *, the German state channel Deutsche Welle - to participate in unauthorized actions, in our opinion, are examples of open interference in the internal affairs of Russia ", The deputy stated.

"Russian trace"

It is worth noting that Russia has been repeatedly accused of meddling in internal affairs. However, no evidence was provided. So, the most high-profile story is connected with the “Russian interference” in the US presidential election in 2016, when the billionaire Donald Trump won.

From the day of his victory to this day, the American media and representatives of political circles have unprovenly accused Moscow of interfering in the election process. In particular, it was alleged that Russia collaborated with the Trump election headquarters. The United States Attorney Robert Muller was brought in to investigate. At the same time, the absurdity and lack of evidence of the charges were repeatedly noted in Moscow.

In April of this year, a report was published on the results of the investigation, and it stated that there were no signs of ties between Moscow and Trump headquarters. Having analyzed the document, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that there is no evidence of “interference” in principle.

“Not accredited RT and Sputnik”

Accusations are being made against the Russian media. So, in July, RT and Sputnik journalists were not allowed to attend the press freedom conference, which was held in London from July 10 to 11. Later, the representative of the British Foreign Ministry explained the reason for the denial of accreditation.

“We did not accredit RT and Sputnik because of their active participation in the dissemination of misinformation,” the Foreign Office said.

Commenting on the refusal, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova ironically suggested that the organizers didn’t say “Sorry, we are full”, which translates as “Sorry, there are no empty seats”, but “Sorry, we are fool”, that is, “I'm sorry, we are fools ".

Authorities in the Baltic countries put particular pressure on the Russian media.

In May this year, Marat Kasem, editor-in-chief of Sputnik Lithuania, was detained at a Lithuanian airport. The reason for the detention and further interrogation was allegedly “a threat to the national security of Lithuania,” the journalist said. Subsequently, Kasem was banned from entering the country for 5 years. It should be noted that the journalist has Lithuanian citizenship.

On July 24, the Latvian authorities blocked the Baltnews.lv website, owned by MIA Russia Today. The reason for the blockage was the threat that the site allegedly poses to the sovereignty of Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that they consider blocking the resource as “the obvious desire of official Riga to clean up its information space from independent and non-state-controlled media.”

* Media recognized as a foreign agent by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 12/05/2017.