Russia blasts reporters’ denial to cover Paris Games

The Kremlin on Monday slammed France for blocking some Russian journalists from covering the Olympic Games in Paris, after French officials said they suspected several of being undercover spies.

In a newspaper interview over the weekend, French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said Paris had rejected a “large number” of applications from Russian citizens for media accreditation to cover the Games.

He told Le Journal du Dimanche that France suspected some were actually working for Moscow’s secret services and were trying to get access to the Games for “intelligence gathering” or possibly “to gain access to computer networks in order to carry out a cyberattack.”

Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency said Monday that five of its text correspondents had been denied accreditation.

“We consider this decision unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

“It violates freedom of the media,” he added, calling on human rights groups to take up the issue.

Russia’s human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said the “threats of espionage and cyberattacks cited by the French authorities are a completely absurd, unsubstantiated claim.” 

Russia has been banned from competing in the Games, which open on Friday, over its military offensive on Ukraine.

A handful of Russian athletes who the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and individual sports federations determined have no connection to the military and have not expressed support for the offensive, are being allowed to compete under a neutral flag.