Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Sunday said the US denied visas to Russian journalists who wanted to cover his trip to New York for a UN Security Council meeting.
“A country that calls itself the strongest, smartest, free and fair country has chickened out and done something stupid by showing what its sworn assurances about protecting freedom of speech and access to information are really worth,” Lavrov said in Moscow before departing for New York, according to AP.
Lavrov hinted Moscow would retaliate in some way, saying, “Be sure that we will not forget and will not forgive.”
The State Department did not respond directly to Lavrov’s criticism but claimed the US “takes seriously its obligations as host country of the UN under the UN Headquarters Agreement, including with respect to visa issuance.”
The Russian mission to the UN also issued a statement slamming the US for denying visas for the journalists. “We consider this step as another manifestation of the United States’ disregard for international law. The refusal to allow access to UN events for Russian journalists once again demonstrates the actual attitude of the American authorities to the freedom of speech and access to information,” the statement said.
Lavrov will be attending UN Security Council meetings on April 24 and 25. The meetings come a few weeks after Russia detained an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich. Lavrov and Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone about Gershkovich earlier this month, but according to Moscow, the two diplomats have no plans to talk in New York on the sidelines of the upcoming Security Council meetings.
I’m totally with Russia on this.! Freedom of the Press?….
You are totally with Russia always.
Are you against freedom of the press?
Hi DJ:
I support peace because I know that if we continue on the path to warfare, we will push everything to the point of nuclear annihilation.
Support peace by supporting Russia.
I get it.
You are supporting the USA/NATO war criminals. To hide war crimes is why the press in all NATO countries is muzzled, supporting the crime makes you an accomplice, you know better.
To keep sending young people to the front fighting and perish for a war they can not win is criminal genocide, Biden and Zelensky and the Europeans are war criminals. They keep sending weapons for political and financial gains and obliterating Ukraine when they could end the slaughter by simply negotiating an end if they only wanted too.
Yep, and leave the criminal Russians out of your equation.
They do fight for their national existence, our neocons are at war for resources, control of markets and in short global hegemony.
The mere fact of the USA/NATO fight for victory to the last Ukrainian or European IS REAL GENOCIDE. It is aka as UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, THAT BY ITSELF IS A WAR CRIME.
Biden/Zelensky and the likes of Nuland and all the European stooges are war criminals, they know they can’t win the war, at best they win an Ukraine in ruins. They are war crimes, no less than Hitler’s war crimes.
The truth is the greatest danger to Empire of Lies. That’s why they are hunting journalists and whistleblowers.
Recently, in his discussion with Glenn Diesen and Alexander Mercouris, former president of Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus, while comparing the situation with the individual freedoms in EU and USSR, said that it is about the same.
We also may compare Assange with Solzhenitsyn. Both were busy with exposing the crimes of the ruling regimes. Solzhenitsyn was expulsed from USSR in 1974 (in 1990 his Soviet citizenship was restored, in 1994 he returned to Russia). Assange is treated much worse.
I might add that Solzhenitsyn and Putin were friends.
At least, Putin demonstrated a great respect for Solzhenitsyn. He also decorated widow of Solzhenitsyn for her work for the country.
When American president will demonstrate a great respect for Assange, we may say that American people elected a good leader.
In 2012, Hillary Clinton said US is losing the information war to alternative media. So it’s no surprise that U.S. has gone full CCP ever since. So denying Russian journalist visas seems to be the logical steps to prevent alternative media access. This move is a war time practice and US hasn’t formally declared war against Russia. A very passive aggressive move, and no fan of passive aggressive people.
In 2012, Hillary Clinton said US is losing the information war to alternative media. So it’s no surprise that U.S. has gone full CCP ever since. So denying Russian journalist visas seems to be the logical steps to prevent alternative media access. This move is a war time practice and US hasn’t formally declared war against Russia. A very passive aggressive move, and no fan of passive aggressive people.
The United Nations SHOULD NOT be in New York.
What location are you proposing? Russia?
Anyplace other than a totalitarian military empire like the US with fake news, fake elections and a collapsing active shooter government. Mexico seems good to me.
How about a neutral nation like Switzerland?
That might be OK. But not New York.
Vienna has
“The IAEA is the world’s centre for cooperation in the nuclear field and seeks to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.”
But the Americans have contaminated the agency, it needs to be disinfected.
India. Too much bs Europe these days.
Yet another intoxicated response. How about Switzerland. It seems all behind the scenes negotiations take place in that country.
The United Nations is a joke and should not exist at all. How many wars has the UN stopped? None that I can recall.
Well, Russia just Jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges and has presented no evidence. They could’ve just sent him back to US and ban him from entering the country for life. But no.
If they provided evidence it might reveal national security instruments to ferret out spies (just like we would say), and harm their NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS.
Yeah right.
Why would a WSJ “journalist” be wandering around in the Urals? Just asking.
He just took a wrong turn apparently.
Why would Russian journalists be anywhere in the US which they are. Does that make them spies?
Russia has not presented any evidence. That should tell you something.
If their journalists went nosing around our military installations, they should be arrested, like happened somewhere else before.
Like the Russian journalists that were denied visas entries to go to the UN? Your point is ridiculous. The UN isn’t even military.
What would happen if any Russian national was hanging out around an out of the way military test area, critical production area or such?
The UN is more and more a puppet of the US and not worth the time and money it costs to operate.
From the beginning it’s been a fraud. Washington structured it like Breton Woods as a critical piece of its imperial apparatus. The US has never honored its Charter.
So true, there was no honorable charter to honor, it was created to fight a broken Russia not to defend Europe against an obliterated country like Russia.
NATO HAS BEEN USED TO FIGHT AGGRESSIVE WARS ONLY.
I think that there could still be a role for the UN. Russia and China must think so. The UN Charter provides a valuable guideline for peaceful interactions between nations. The fact that the United States remains a leading member of the UN while continuously engaging in gross violations of the UN Charter provides a stark example of US hypocrisy for all the world to clearly see.
I agree. The Russians and Chinese are smart enough, despite all they have to swallow, to see that. It’s just a forum, like a playground, where there’s always a bully and his gang; but while it is the the only playground for geo-political economics, you have to play there, or nowhere. Parallel applies to the dollar.
The USA controls all international institutions and the EU and NATO. The USA CONTROLS all major European nation’s governments, there is no other explanation for the unity they claim they are in. No government would be so openly destroy their people and economies, even a 4th grader knows better. Just take the pipeline sabotage, an act of war, and no questions asked, that is just too insane to be believed. The European governments are willing accomplices helping Biden/Nuland/Blinken/Sullivan and the other PNAC neocons to annihilate the European continent. Or were they bribed and extorted?
The whole situation is too insane to understand it. It is mindboggling, a deranged Biden and an addicted, corrupt clown like the moron Zelensky and the old PNAC are leading the world to nuclear disaster and no one can stop them? How crazy and corrupt and greedy is our political/ corporate elite? Where in USA/NATO is a real statesman/woman with character and integrity?
Maybe they should have just let the journalists come and then arrested them for espionage. I’m sure I’ve seen something like that happen somewhere else before, but can’t recall where.
Cute. I’ve been of the opinion for may years that the UN has no proper place in the USA. It should be in a location agreeable to all parties.
If their journalists went nosing around our military installations, they should be arrested, like happened somewhere else before.
This is the exact reason UN and for that matter, All international agencies should be located in a small army-less neutral country…!
Wash. set up the UN to expand US markets after WWII. It’s never done anything constructive re. world peace. Governments do what they want regardless of the UN, or even the people they are supposed to serve and protect; US is the latest example with its ongoing world bullying, killing millions and trashing entire countries since WWII. It just goes on and on, and will continue until the American people stop it–but How?? Any ideas? Obviously voting for your lesser evil is still voting for evil.
2 russian guys were denied visas.
right now Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is being held in a russian jail accused of spying.