Offices of Russian Media Outlets Raided in Ukrainian Capital
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Ukrainian security agencies have raided at least two offices of Russian state-owned media outlets in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, media outlets said Tuesday.
Russian state-funded RIA Novosti news agency said its office in Kiev has been raided and that its bureau chief has been detained for questioning. The agency said Ukrainian security officers stormed its office, and that it has been unable to get in touch with its correspondents there since.
Another Kremlin-funded outlet, RT, said it cannot contact its staff in Kiev after security officers raided the building. RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said on Twitter that its office phones in Kiev appeared to be blocked and that its Ukrainian website is down, AP reported.
The raids were later confirmed by Ukrainian security agency, SBU, which said in a statement that it is investigating "a network of media outlets" controlled by the Russian government that are "used as tools in a hybrid war against Ukraine."
The raids came several hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to travel to southern Russia to attend the opening ceremony of the bridge linking Russia and the Crimean peninsula.
Relations between Moscow and Kiev soured in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea and threw its weight behind separatists in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has long blamed Russian state media for fanning the flames of the war in the east that has killed more than 10,000 people.
