Journalists from leading US media working in Russia refused to personally interview Ukrainian soldiers, who earlier in the week crossed the border into Russia asking for asylum, a deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry\u2019s press department said.<\/p>\n
On early Monday a group of 438 Ukrainian troops and border guards from pro-Kiev forces fighting against militia in the embattled southeast of Ukraine asked Russia\u2019s southern border authorities for permission to enter Russia seeking asylum, and a humanitarian corridor was opened for them.<\/p>\n
Maria Zakharova wrote in her Facebook account that as the news broke out on Monday about over 400 Ukrainian soldiers crossing into Russia seeking asylum, the Russian Foreign Ministry decided to arrange a meeting with the soldiers for foreign journalists accredited in Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeeping in mind how important it will be for journalists, particularly for foreign ones, to talk to Ukrainian military servicemen, to learn firsthand about the real combat actions, motivation of the Ukrainian soldiers and the actual reasons behind their decision [to seek asylum], we decided to invite a group of foreign correspondents to the Rostov Region,\u201d Zakharova said.<\/p>\n
She said an aircraft from the Russian Defense Ministry was scheduled for flight on Monday to the Rostov Region, where the Ukrainian soldiers were temporary sheltered, and the plane was ready to take along a group of between 30 and 40 journalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have immediately started calling everyone,\u201d she said. \u201cWe gathered up to 40 [correspondents] within an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Zakharova said, there was only Bloomberg news agency representative in the group as the rest of the US media decided to decline the ministry\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcept for Bloomberg there were no journalists representing US media!!! An opportunity to meet with the Ukrainian military servicemen, who crossed into the Russian territory, was declined by representatives of leading US media,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are these journalists base their materials upon if they decline talking to firsthand sources?\u201d Zakharova said. \u201cThe funniest episode was with Reuters journalist, who registered, left for the airport, but changed his mind half way there and did not fly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia is being criticized for little interaction with western media and it is allegedly the reason for Russia\u2019s media blackout,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the fact is that we speak and they either refuse to listen or they are prohibited from listening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian military servicemen, who laid down arms and crossed into Russia, were accommodated in a tent camp that was set up for them near the Gukovo border checkpoint in Russia\u2019s Rostov Region.<\/p>\n
The soldiers expressed surprise over being treated well on the Russian territory as, according to them, news information they gathered earlier from Kiev media was in sharp contrast to the reality they saw.<\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Journalists from leading US media working in Russia refused to personally interview Ukrainian soldiers, who earlier in the week crossed the border into Russia asking for asylum, a deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry\u2019s press department said. On early Monday a group of 438 Ukrainian troops and border guards from pro-Kiev forces fighting against … Continue reading “US media refuses to report news”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[1102,9636,4106,1445,7484,9635],"class_list":["post-15104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-cnn","tag-defecting-soldiers","tag-msm","tag-nyt","tag-ukraine","tag-us-media"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15105,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104\/revisions\/15105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}