MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry is aware that the UK-based bank NatWest has not tried to discuss with the management of Russia Today TV channel the closure of RT’s accounts contrary to London’s statements to the opposite, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
The Russian side has received a note from the UK Foreign Office, which specifically says that the bank is reviewing the situation and is in contact with the client to further discuss the issue, the spokeswoman said.
However, the bank has not held any contacts with the RT management on this issue, the Russian diplomat said.
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It is not known whether the UK government is deliberately misinforming the Russian side or it has happened accidentally that the government has allowed someone to misinform it on this issue, Zakharova said.
"But we would like to say officially that none from the bank has contacted either with the RT management or representative office neither in the UK nor in Moscow, neither in writing nor orally to resolve the situation or to discuss it," the spokeswoman said.
"This is to understand how we have affairs with London and what people allow themselves writing in official documents. They allow themselves writing the untruth," the Russian diplomat said.
RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan wrote in her Twitter microblog on October 17 that the RT’s accounts in the UK had been frozen. As a source in the UK Treasury told TASS, the accounts freeze is the bank’s decision rather than new sanctions against Russia.
The spokeswoman for UK Prime Minister Theresa May said that the UK government had nothing to do with the decision by NatWest to close the RT’s accounts.