Russia says it will expel a BBC journalist

Russia is expelling a BBC correspondent based in Moscow, Russian state television reported, the first time in years that a high-profile Western journalist has been publicly forced out of the country as part of a political dispute.

The BBC condemned the move to expel the reporter, Sarah Rainsford, while holding out hope that the decision could still be reversed.

“The expulsion of Sarah Rainsford is a direct assault on media freedom which we condemn unreservedly,” Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, said in a statement on Friday. “We urge the Russian authorities to reconsider their decision.”

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that the British broadcasting giant had ignored “repeated warnings” that it could face consequences in retaliation for pressure on Russian journalists in Britain, but she did not confirm the expulsion. The tone of a state television report Thursday evening left little doubt, however, that Russia was escalating its confrontation with the Western news media.

“Sarah Rainsford is going home,” a reporter on the Rossiya-24 state-run news channel intoned. “This correspondent of the BBC Moscow bureau will not have her visa renewed, according to our experts, because Great Britain has crossed all red lines in media terms.”

Rainsford, a veteran correspondent first posted to Moscow in 2000, will be required to leave Russia by the end of the month, the report said. It described the move as “our symmetric response” to what it said was “discrimination” by Britain against Russian reporters for state-run outlets such as RT and Sputnik.

Russia’s state media have long cast major Western news outlets as part of a Washington-led campaign to discredit and weaken the country. At the same time, Moscow-based journalists for major European and American newspapers and broadcasters accredited to work in Russia are generally able to operate freely.

The expulsion of Rainsford would be a signal that times are changing — as they did in China last year with the expulsion of American reporters. Independent news media outlets in Russia have already come under extraordinary pressure in recent months amid the Kremlin’s intensified crackdown on dissent before the nationwide parliamentary election next month. Several Russian news media outlets have been declared “foreign agents,” restricting their ability to function, while the prominent investigative outlet Proekt was banned last month as an “undesirable organisation.”

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