Poroshenko imposes sanctions against the heads of Russia Today and other Russian media outlets
As reported on the Ukrainian President’s website on May 27th, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposing personal sanctions against the leaders of the largest Russian media conglomerates.
The sanction list includes 17 leaders of various Russian media agencies. Ukraine imposed sanctions against the General Director of Channel One, Konstantin Ernst and host Irada Zeinalova, the General Director of the TASS news Agency, Sergey Mikhailov, the former General Director of channel LifeNews, Ashot Gabrelyanov, as well as the Chief Editor of the TV company RT (Russia Today), Margarita Simonyan.
The list also includes the General Director of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, the General Director of the Rossiya One television channel, the head of the public broadcasting directorate on the NTV channel and its former General Director. Sanctions were also imposed against the General Director of Komsomolskaya Pravda JSC, the General Director of Moskovsky Komsomolets, the Editor-in-Chief of the Regnum news agency, a former Editor-in-Chief of Izvestiya newspaper, the Editor-in-Chief of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper and the Editor-in-Chief of the Russky Reporter newspaper.
As stated on the President’s website, the sanctions were imposed against those individuals “posing real or potential threat to national interests, security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, contributing to terrorist activities and violating human and civil rights and freedoms, leading to the occupation of the territories and creating obstacles for the full realization of Ukrainians’ rights and freedoms.”
Special economic and other restrictive measures will be applied as restraints against those included on the list. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will inform the USA and European Union about new sanctions and ask Western countries to resort to the same measures against the leaders of Russian media.
At the same time, the Ukrainian President has lifted sanctions from 29 foreign journalists including members of Rossiya Segodnya news agency staff, RIA Novosti and TASS. The sanctions were also lifted from the journalists from Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Israel and Macedonia.