LONDON, March 31. /TASS/: The British government has put the Russian TV channel RT (the TV-Novosti autonomous non-profit organization), the Rossiya Segodnya media holding, and 12 Russian citizens, including Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, Chief of the National Defense Command and Control Center, and journalist Sergey Brilev, on a sanctions list.
The updated blacklist was published on the British government's website on Thursday morning.
The document states that Rossiya Segodnya's assets in the UK will be frozen because the organization operates in an area of strategic importance to the Russian government, namely information, communications and digital technology, and receives support from the Russian government.
The new sanctions also target Alexander Zharov, Chief Executive Officer of Gazprom-Media, Alexey Nikolov, Managing Director of RT, Anton Anisimov, Head of Sputnik International Broadcasting, Vladimir Maksimenko, Director at the Strategic Culture Foundation, as well as journalists and experts cooperating with it: Andrey Areshev, Sergey Saenko, Natalya Skorokhodova, Svetlana Zamlelova, Irina Bubnov and Anton Bespalov.
"Following Ofcom’s decision to revoke RT’s broadcasting licence, these sanctions will ensure RT will not be able to find its way back on UK televisions," the Foreign Office said.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country.
Following this step, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and several other countries announced sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities.
