KIEV, June 18 (RIA Novosti) – Ukrainian parliament has unveiled on its website a list of Russian media that may soon be stripped of their credentials.
A draft resolution lodged with the Ukrainian parliament Wednesday seeks to temporarily ban Russian journalists and their crew members from various government bodies to allegedly protect national security, fend off information security threats and safeguard freedom of information.
Channel One, International Network, RTR-Planet, Rossiya-24, NTV-World and “some other media belonging to the Russian Federation” are in for a temporary license freeze that will be in place until the Ukrainian court rules on the lawsuits filed by Ukraine’s National TV and Radio Broadcasting Council.
“The National Ukrainian Council on TV and Radio Broadcasting, the Ukrainian Cabinet and public authorities are to follow through on this resolution in a two days’ time after its adoption,” an official message on the Ukrainian parliament’s website says.
The initiative was submitted Wednesday by Ukrainian lawmakers from the far-right Svoboda (Freedom) Party, which played a decisive role in deposing President Viktor Yanukovych.
Oleksandr Myrniy, a co-initiator and member of the Svoboda Party, accused Russian reporters of spinning facts and “waging an information war against Ukraine.”
The draft resolution is yet another attack on Russian media covering the painful regime change in this ex-Soviet country, following the February coup. Over the past two and a half months, reporters of Russia’s leading channels and newspapers have been kidnapped, beaten, threatened and denied access to Ukraine.
On Tuesday, a Russian TV journalist and a video engineer lost their lives in a deadly mortar attack on a village on the outskirts of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Reporter for the state-run VGTRK television Igor Kornelyuk died of wounds in a local hospital, while video engineer Anton Voloshin was reported missing. Later the same day, the TV channel published a statement confirming his death.
Moscow, which describes the "anti-terror" military operation in the southeast as a punitive operation, has called for an immediate end to the bloodshed, but despite numerous promises to initiate the de-escalation process, Kiev has so far not made any moves to stop the attack.
