The Canadian broadcaster CBC has had to close its Moscow office after more than 44 years.

The accreditations and visas of the journalists would be cancelled, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced, justifying this with "response measures" to a broadcast ban on the Russian state broadcaster RT, which was imposed in Canada in mid-March.

A Russian diplomat in the country, Vladimir Proskuryakov, told CBC the channel's foreign staff would be given "no less than three weeks" to leave Russia.

Proskuryakov said he does not rule out that Russia will close more foreign media outlets, including those of EU countries.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

  • Follow I follow

After the Russian attack on Ukraine, the latter imposed a broadcast ban on RT and the state medium "Sputnik", to which Russia has not yet specifically "answered".

The action against CBC - which described the Russian move as "very disappointing" - is reminiscent of the action taken against Deutsche Welle, whose Moscow office Russia closed in February after a broadcasting ban in Germany against the German offshoot of RT, which operates without a valid license had been imposed.

Russia has also introduced its own law through the coordinated authorities, which is intended to allow media outlets to be shut down without a court decision if they spread "false news" about the Russian armed forces or foreign activities of other state organs, or if this is a "mirror measure". the ban on Russian media broadcasting abroad.

The former is aimed at Russian media, whose license the Attorney General's Office is supposed to revoke if they "discredit" the army, for example.

This refers, for example, to reports on the Bucha massacre that contradict the official Moscow versions – some of which have in common that they blame Ukraine for the killings.

Foreign correspondents' offices should be able to be closed if the state in question obstructs the activities of Russian media on its territory.

The proposed law is likely to further aggravate the situation of journalists in Russia, which has been even more desolate since the attack, by prohibiting them from disseminating information from other media that contains “inaccurate” or “discrediting information” about the Russian armed forces.

This obviously serves the purpose of also indirectly cutting off the Russian population from news about the war in Ukraine.

In addition, the already extensive blocking options will be expanded again.