Russia on Wednesday barred a number of journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, as well as dozens of other Americans, from entering the country.
In a statement posted online, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it had permanently barred 92 U.S. citizens in response to the Biden administration’s “Russophobic course,” including its sweeping sanctions. In addition to the journalists, the list of those barred included lawyers, security agency officials, lawmakers, university professors and business executives.
The ministry said it had barred “editorial staff and reporters of leading liberal-globalist publications involved in the production and dissemination of ‘fakes’ about Russia and the Russian armed forces, and the propaganda ‘cover’ for the ‘hybrid war’ unleashed by Washington,” according to a translation of the statement.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The list named 14 Wall Street Journal employees, including the editor in chief, Emma Tucker. It also listed five New York Times journalists and four Washington Post journalists, as well as a political cartoonist from The Guardian based in London. The Times has not independently confirmed that every person on the list is a U.S. citizen.
The announcement escalates President Vladimir V. Putin’s attacks against press freedoms and his crackdown on Western journalists.
Early this month, Russia freed Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, as part of a complex prisoner swap with the United States and other countries. Mr. Gershkovich, a foreign correspondent, had been held in a Russian prison for 16 months on baseless charges of espionage, the first journalist arrested on such charges since the Cold War.
The Wall Street Journal and the U.S. government continuously denied the charges, but Mr. Gershkovich was convicted in a secretive Russian trial in July and sentenced to 16 years in prison before he was released in the swap. Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a U.S.-Russian dual citizen, was also released.
Most Western news organizations pulled their correspondents out of Russia for safety reasons after Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest in March 2023.
“The Putin regime is farcically consistent in its all-out assault on free press and truth,” a Wall Street Journal spokeswoman said on Wednesday. “This laughable list of targets is no exception.”
Representatives for The New York Times and The Washington Post declined to comment.
“This ban is now the latest in Russia’s various attempts to stifle independent information since its invasion of Ukraine,” said Bruce D. Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “But despite these unwarranted efforts to target journalists, the news media around the world will continue to find ways to keep the global public informed.”
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