Any attempts to interfere in Russian elections from outside must be ruled out. Today at the first meeting of the spring session, the Federation Council focused on measures to counter political threats. How is the West trying to influence the election campaign, including through the media? And will Russia expand the list of foreign agents?
Andrey Grigoriev will tell us from the Federation Council.
The closer the elections, the more worries for the authorities, and among them an important one how to attract voters to the elections.
"Voice of America" might sound Russian, but it's funded from a US budget. Here, day after day, there is only talk that the turnout during the Russian Presidential election is likely to be low, and there are appeals to not vote at all.
“In what situations should the elections be boycotted?” In such surveys, one can see a violation of Russian legislation, and an attempt to influence elections in our country is obvious.
Andrey Klimov, Vice Chair, Federation Council International Affairs Committee: "In addition to direct statements from the State Department about who to register and who not to at these elections, they use, among other things, different paths and one of the most obvious paths is the so-called mass media. First of all, we are talking about Radio Liberty and Voice of America. The idea is this: either make people vote for specific opposition leaders, and if that's not possible for some reason, to boycott the elections".
Each such case, and there are dozens, is recorded. All these facts will be presented in a special report, which has already been prepared by the Federation Council Commission on Protection of State Sovereignty and Prevention of Interference into Internal Affairs. If necessary, Russian senators promise to take equivalent retaliatory measures. International observers will be able to study the documents collected in the Russian upper parliament.
Valentina Matvienko: "We, the Federation Council, like other structures that have the right to do so, will invite foreign parliamentarians on our bilateral relations, as well as representatives of international parliamentary structures as observers. Meanwhile, it's important to prevent any external attempts to interfere in the election process".
But today at the plenary session the European Parliament in Strasbourg is discussing how to oppose Russian propaganda. The West accuses Russia of influencing political processes around the globe, although there isn't a single piece of evidence to prove this.
Sandra Kalniete, Latvia: "I'm convinced that quality journalism should be supported by the government and the EU, otherwise, it will disappear, and we will remain alone at the mercy of the Kremlin and the trolls who know how to play the social media game".
In the US, they continue to struggle with the alleged Russian information threat. Besides the TV channel RT and the news agency Sputnik, TV signal broadcasters are also being persecuted.
Andrey Klimov: "There are structures, US legal entities, that simply transmit a signal, performing technical work. They are already being labeled, one has already received a label of a foreign agent. The second company, MRBIA, has now received a proposal to provide data so that the US Justice Department can decide whether it's an agent or not".
In Russia, 9 mass media outlets are recognized as foreign agents, but this list may be expanded in the near future, as reported in the Federation Council.
Andrey Grigoriev, Anna Kolk, Stanislav Pletnikov, Oleg Vasilkov. Vesti
