Moscow will retaliate if the UK implements threats made in London against the Russian media, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“In the event that Britain implements threats against Russian media, retaliatory measures will not be long in coming,” the diplomat wrote on Telegram.
According to her, British journalists "may ask their German colleagues how it happens."
Recall that on February 2, the German regulator banned RT DE from broadcasting on all platforms.
The next day, the Foreign Ministry announced retaliatory measures: among other things, Deutsche Welle broadcasting was stopped in the Russian Federation, its office was closed, and the accreditation of employees of the Russian bureau of the company was canceled.
On Wednesday, Feb. 23, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said UK Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Nadine Dorris had submitted a request for an RT license to Ofcom.
Thus, he responded to the calls of a number of British MPs to take action against the TV channel.
In particular, a day earlier, the leader of the UK Labor Party, Cyrus Starmer, called for turning off the broadcasting of the RT channel around the world.
In turn, Ofcom's response to the ministerial request said that the regulator is "closely monitoring the situation" amid the crisis in Ukraine and is strengthening its oversight of coverage of these events in the UK.
Consideration of complaints in this regard is also accelerated, the regulator is ready to take "quick action if necessary."
“Declarations of devotion to free speech are just a farce”
Anna Belkina, deputy editor-in-chief of RT, said that in four years the channel had never violated Ofcom's broadcasting rules, and the regulator did not question the validity of the license issued to the channel.
“However, British politicians openly interfere in the work of institutions that they themselves call independent and free from political pressure.
Thus demonstrating that their claims of devotion to freedom of speech are simply a farce,” she said.
Member of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Olga Kovitidi, in an interview with RT, called the call to check the activities of RT a provocation.
"Johnson's instruction that the British regulator needs to revise RT's license to broadcast in Britain is another provocation directed against Russia," the senator emphasized.
In turn, the State Duma said that the initiative of the British authorities in relation to RT is an attempt to drown out the voice of freedom.
Alexey Chepa, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, spoke about this.
As the parliamentarian noted, the UK is a country with strict censorship aimed at "suppressing any anti-official point of view."
At the same time, Chepa expressed confidence that the angle that RT gives is interesting to viewers and listeners in the UK.
“Naturally, in the conditions of such a propaganda war, an information war that the West unleashed against Russia, they will do everything to drown out the voice of freedom,” Chepa concluded.
Dmitry Belik, a member of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said in a comment to RT that the UK is trying to "protect its citizens from the inconvenient truth that pricks the eyes of Western politicians."
“Information professionally presented by journalists allows the audience to independently form a picture of what is happening and draw the appropriate conclusions, which is what British parliamentarians are afraid of,” he said.
The MP added that the UK prefers to hide the fact that "thanks to the decisive and consistent actions of the Russian authorities, Western politicians look very unpresentable against the backdrop of today's events."
“No one has canceled the freedom of access to information, and the concern about the RT license issue once again confirms the own inconsistency of individual representatives of the British establishment,” Belik concluded.