Moscow Expels 2 German Journalists Over Allegations of Closing Russian TV Bureau

The German government denied it had taken action against Russia’s Channel One office in Berlin but said two Russian journalists no longer had residency permits.

Germany and Russia engaged in tit-for-tat blows over news media freedom on Wednesday, with each country making moves to expel two of the other country’s journalists.

Russia ordered the expulsion of two German journalists in retaliation for what it said was Germany’s move to close the Russian state broadcaster’s Berlin bureau.

The German government denied that it had closed the bureau of the Russian state broadcaster, Channel One. But it said two Russian journalists working there no longer had residency permits and directed questions to Berlin’s local government, which has jurisdiction over such permits.

In a lengthy written statement, the city government confirmed that it had denied the two journalists’ residency permits last Friday, saying they were hurting German and European interests and noting it had similarly revoked another foreign journalist’s residency permit in February for spreading “Russian propaganda and disinformation.” The agency said that its decision could still be challenged in court.

Christian Wagner, a spokesman for the German foreign ministry, said the German government had not and was not planning to close the office. “Russian journalists can report freely and unhindered in Germany,” he said at a government briefing, calling Moscow’s action “disproportionate.”

Steffen Hebestreit, the German government spokesman, added, “If you don’t fulfill the residency requirements, it doesn’t help that you work as a journalist.”

On Wednesday, Channel One, which is financed by the Kremlin, opened its early morning news show with the accusation that it had been ordered to “close down” its Berlin bureau. The TV channel said the correspondent Ivan Blagoy and the cameraman Dmitri Rodionov had been told to leave by early December.

The Russian foreign ministry said that two German journalists — Frank Aischmann, a correspondent, and Sven Feller, a technician — who were working for Germany’s public broadcaster, ARD, in Russia would be kicked out of the country.

ARD, which has a major presence in Russia, will not be able to bring in replacements until “the German government creates conditions for the Russian journalists in Germany,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian ministry, said in a televised briefing.

Two other Russian state-financed TV channels have been operating freely in Germany.

Germany has said there is a major disinformation campaign targeting its Russian-speaking citizens. The foreign ministry in a report this summer accused the Kremlin of deliberately trying to manipulate public discourse and discredit Western foreign policy through its online Doppelgänger disinformation network, which used sites that impersonated legitimate news entities and fake social media profiles.

German officials previously singled out Channel One and Mr. Blagoy for alleged bias. In 2016, German diplomats publicly voiced concerns about Channel One’s coverage of a fake story about the rape of a teenager of Russian descent in Germany.

As the United States and the European Union were rolling out sweeping sanctions against individuals and various sectors of the Russian economy early on in Russia’s war on Ukraine, several Western countries targeted RT, a Russian state-owned media company that broadcasts in foreign languages for audiences abroad. The European Union suspended licenses for several Russian TV news platforms in an attempt to clamp down on the pro-Russian messages being broadcast to Russian speakers in their countries.

Because of the sanctions, Channel One has not been allowed to broadcast in the European Union since 2022.

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