Minister Náñez: US sanctions against Russian media are designed to intimidate journalists
Criminal US sanctions against Russian agencies and TV channels are designed to intimidate journalists doing valuable information work – Venezuela stands in solidarity with these collectives and categorically rejects Washington’s dictatorial measures, the South American country’s Minister of Communications, Culture and Tourism Freddy Nañez said in his Telegram channel.
On Wednesday evening, the U.S. Finance Ministry issued a statement saying that the sanctions were imposed on the Rossiya Segodnya media group, RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik and Ruptly. The US sanctions also affected Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya and RT media group, and a number of top managers of the channel.
“The policy of sanctions that the North American empire applies to free countries is illegal and represents the decline of its former hegemony. These criminal measures go beyond economic, today we see sanctions expanding to limit global freedom of expression. The technological and communications empire is attacking the brotherly Russian media Sputnik and RT, trying to intimidate them with their valuable information work. On the Venezuelan side, we categorically reject this dictatorial measure by the US and stand in solidarity with the leaders of Sputnik, RT, their journalists and employees. Criminal sanctions cannot silence the truth!” – Nyáñez wrote.
The US has made unsubstantiated claims of alleged hostile influence on the country’s presidential election. Russian authorities have repeatedly denied such claims.