MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Western steps to cancel Russian and Russian-language media are a gross violation of commitments made by Western countries within the OSCE, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday at a working meeting with the heads of foreign media outlets accredited in Russia.
The top diplomat noted that Russia regarded such actions as "intolerance to pluralism of opinion". "From the legal point of view, this line of abolition of Russian and Russian-language media blatantly violates the commitments that [Western countries] have undertaken within the OSCE to ensure media freedom and equal access to information for the population of all OSCE countries," Lavrov said.
He also recalled the words of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who had earlier stated that Western countries were banning Russian media in order to "protect freedom of speech". Lavrov pointed out that the initiative to ensure freedom of speech in 1990 was voiced by the very France that restricted the work of RT and Sputnik. "I would like to point out an interesting fact: the main initiator of such an obligation to ensure access to information in 1990 was France, the same France that kicked RT and Sputnik out of the Elysee Palace years ago, declaring them instruments of Russian propaganda," the top diplomat said.