MOSCOW:
The Russian interior ministry has placed six foreign journalists on its wanted list for illegally crossing the Russian frontier to report inside the Kursk region after a Ukrainian cross-border incursion, the TASS news agency reported on Thursday.
Russia’s FSB security service said last month it had opened criminal cases against several of the journalists, who include a British correspondent for CNN, a reporter for Deutsche Welle, a journalist for Italian state broadcaster RAI, and three Ukrainians working for the 1+1 TV channel.
The journalists’ employers have previously said their reporting trips into Kursk were legitimate.
Italy’s foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Rome to express “surprise at Moscow’s singular decision” against RAI reporter Stefania Battistini, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote on social media X.
Ukrainian forces launched their incursion on August 6 and remain inside Russia despite a Russian counteroffensive which has pushed them back in places.