The ministry says Russia expelled two German journalists in tit-for-tat retaliation

MOSCOW – The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday that it had withdrawn the accreditation of two employees of the German broadcaster ARD and ordered them to leave the country, which it described as retaliation for the German authorities’ move against two journalists of Russian state television.

Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing in Moscow that it could grant accreditation to other ARD employees if German authorities allow journalists from Russian Channel One to work in Berlin.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner denied that the federal government had closed the Channel One office, as claimed by the Russian broadcaster.

“The federal government has not closed this broadcaster’s office,” Wagner said at a news conference. “Russian journalists can report freely and unhindered in Germany.”

“I can only guess that it has to do with residence status issues,” Wagner said, adding that German federal authorities do not deal with such issues and state authorities make decisions on their own.

The Berlin state immigration office announced that on November 22 it refused to issue a residence permit to the head of Channel One’s office and the channel’s cameraman. He stated that this decision could be appealed.

Channel one didn’t work European Union sanctions from December 2022 due to increasing tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. EU sanctions prevent the channel from broadcasting in Europe, but do not affect the presence of staff working for the channel in Berlin.

This decision followed the decision to deny residence in Germany to a Brazilian citizen working for the Russian state news agency Ruptly, as well as to the head of the local bureau of the news agency Rossiya Segodnia and his wife.

The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the expulsion of ARD workers as “unacceptable” and its justification “erroneous”, stating on social media platform legal and Russian arbitrariness.

WDR, the regional affiliate of ARD responsible for the Russian public broadcaster’s reporting, confirmed that the accreditation of correspondent Frank Aischmann and a technical staff member had been withdrawn.

“This is a drastic step,” WDR program director Jörg Schönenborn said in a statement. “As a result, our ability to report from Moscow is again limited. We have been dealing with intimidation and restrictions on our reporting from Moscow for almost three years.”