Washington's new sanctions targeting Russian media, including the Rossiya Segodnya international media group, are seen as an alleged fight against interference and will not go unanswered, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday.
"In essence, this is yet another orchestrated campaign, a 'witch hunt' … We have no illusions that the rampant censorship in the US will receive proper assessment from relevant international organizations, whose activities are orchestrated by Washington. At the same time, we qualify their silence as approval of such practices and as actual complicity in the arbitrary actions taken against Russian media. The actions of the US administration will not go unanswered," Zakharova said in a statement published by the ministry.
The current US administration is trying to justify the sanctions against Russian media "in an extremely cynical way" by claiming they are fighting "interference" in internal political affairs, the spokeswoman said.
Zakharova added that the US had declared war on freedom of speech throughout the world.