Russia's Federal Security Service said today that it has opened a criminal case against a journalist working for the American television CNN (CNN) on the grounds of illegally crossing the state border of Russia to film a report in the Kursk region after the Ukrainian military invasion there, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
The service named the journalist - Nick Peyton Walsh - a British citizen working for CNN as a chief correspondent in the "International Security" department. She has initiated similar proceedings against two Ukrainian journalists. So far, there is no comment from CNN.
On August 16, the media broadcast a report from Suja, a Russian border town currently controlled by Ukraine. In the material, journalists accompany a Ukrainian military convoy on the way from Ukraine to Suja, where they come across an almost completely deserted town, in which only twenty elderly residents remain. The Federal Security Service added that Russia would soon issue an international arrest warrant in connection with the cases against the three journalists. For illegal crossing of the state border, national legislation provides for up to five years in prison.
These days, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the American chargé d'affaires in Moscow for an explanation to protest against the "provocative actions" to the American journalists who were broadcasting from the Kursk region. Ukraine's surprise invasion of Kursk Oblast - the largest assault on Russian territory since World War II - was launched on August 6, when thousands of Ukrainian troops crossed Russia's western border. Russia, which has so far failed to expel the Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region, said today that its troops repelled an attempt by the Ukrainian army to enter Russian territory in another region - Bryansk.