According to the department, at the request of the head of the Polish Military Counterintelligence Service, VGTRK special correspondent Yevgeny Reshetnev was banned from entering the country for five years, as well as in all Schengen states for a period of three years.
The same ban was extended to Sputnik journalist Leonid Sviridov
“In relation to Reshetnev, a misinformation was carried out stating that he was allegedly engaged in“ activities that go beyond the scope of the work of a journalist ”.
The last time the correspondent visited Poland was in January 2020 to prepare a story about the Auschwitz death camp, the ministry said in a statement.
They noted that a campaign was fabricated against Sviridov: at the end of 2014, the Polish Foreign Ministry revoked his journalistic accreditation, and later, "despite the lack of legal grounds, he was deprived of his permanent residence permit in the European Union."
“In Poland, accusations of espionage have become a frequent pretext for repressive actions against journalists,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
Moscow regards this decision as another example of the violation by the Polish authorities of the Schengen legislation of the European Union "to settle accounts with unwanted Russian citizens," she added.
Earlier, Maria Zakharova commented on the decision of the Latvian authorities to ban Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov from entering the country.