The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation demanded New York Times and Financial Times to refute articles about allegedly understated statistics on deaths from the coronavirus in Russia.
Earlier, they published an article stating that the real death rate from COVID-19 in Russia is 70% higher than official statistics.
The official representative of the Department, Maria Zakharova, according to RIA Novosti, said that letters demanding a retraction would be sent to the US and British embassies. The Foreign Ministry also sent a corresponding appeal to the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Arlem Desir, UNESCO Secretary-General Audre Azoulay and the UN Secretariat.
Zakharova, however, stressed that the publications would not be deprived of accreditation.
"This is not our method: revocation of accreditation, expulsion of journalists or any other repressive measures. We always respond, first of all, with a word. With a word, supported by action, concrete steps," said, in particular, the official representative of the diplomatic Department on "Solovyov LIVE" YouTube channell.
Further steps in relation to Financial Times and New York Times, however, according to Zakharova, would depend on whether they publish a rebuttal.
Earlier, on the program "60 minutes" on "Russia 1" channel, Zakharova noted that all the materials "have similar handwriting", which means that the media used a common base for writing materials. At the same time, the texts do not represent the official position of Russia.
Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, said that the Russian authorities had never manipulated official statistics.
"I want to emphasize once again that the data that I gave yesterday at the meeting with the President, regarding the fact that the mortality rate in the Russian Federation is 7.6 times lower than in the world as a whole, they are as follows," she said, in particular.
The WHO, meanwhile, has already commented on the scandalous materials. The representative of the Organization in Russia, Melita Vujnovich, said that there was no deliberate understatement of statistics in the Russian Federation.
"At this moment, I do not see anything so terrible as to say that Russia deliberately does not want to report the mortality from the coronavirus," she said, in particular.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Alexander Scherbak / TASS