Russian Foreign Ministry calls incident with Russian journalists in Kosovo outrageous

Moscow, Sep 24 (Agency) Moscow considers the incident with Russian journalists in Kosovo outrageous and counts on reaction of international agencies, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. According to Kosovo Albanian portals, the “police” of the self-proclaimed Kosovo detained two Russians — Sergey Belous and Oleg Derkach — in the early hours on Friday when they were trying to enter the region from Central Serbia. According to media reports, these people had some “electronic devices” with them. Belous previously collaborated with a number of Russian media outlets. The Russian Embassy in Serbia denied information about the detention of the Russians: according to its information, it is about the film crew of Russia’s Channel Five, two of the three members of which were denied access to the region.

The embassy noted that the Kosovar “law enforcers” had not detained the journalists; now the entire film crew is in Central Serbia. “We regard this outrageous incident as evidence of the inability of the leadership of the autonomous region to provide civilized conditions for journalistic activities that meet generally recognized standards in the protection of freedom of speech and media rights, as well as an act of deliberate misinformation aimed at diverting the attention of the general public from the true causes of social and economic tensions in Kosovo and Metohija,” Zakharova said in a statement. According to the spokeswoman, “part of the responsibility for this lies with the western ‘guardians’ of the region.” Zakharova expressed hope that “the authorized international agencies will also give an adequate assessment of what happened.”