UPD: Berlin did not close the office of the Russian Channel One, and the issue with the two journalists is related to visa requirements, reported Reuters citing the German Foreign Ministry.
«Russian journalists can work freely and without hindrance in Germany. A number of Russian journalists are accredited in the Federal Press Office», — stated the ministry representative, emphasizing that the bureau was not closed.
On Tuesday, two employees of the German bureau of the Russian Channel One, correspondent Ivan Blagoy and cameraman Dmitry Volkov, were ordered to leave the country in the first half of December, reported the channel.
Blagoy himself associates the closure of the bureau with a report on the detention of German citizen Nikolai Gayduk, whom the FSB accuses of sabotaging a gas distribution station in Kaliningrad in March 2024.
Meanwhile, German authorities noted that the channel «continues to influence the Russian-speaking population of Germany through propaganda and disinformation», including justifying the invasion of Ukraine and inciting hatred towards its citizens, equating them to Nazis. The ruling also states that the Russian channel «promotes the decline of the West, the economic collapse of Europe» and advances «other far-right narratives, causing distrust towards the structures of the German state and the European Union».
Russia has prepared retaliatory measures, stated the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, but did not specify what they were.
Later it was revealed that in response to the closure of the German bureau of Channel One, Russia is expelling two journalists from the German media group ARD.