After RT’s German-language channel was taken off air just hours following its launch, Moscow is drafting a package of retaliatory measures aimed at Berlin, Russian media outlets reported on Friday, citing government sources.
The proposed measures, which could be imposed in response to the blocking of RT DE, are said to range from restricting advertising for German companies in Russian online outlets to levying “harsh” fines on YouTube if it refuses to reinstate the channel. Also reportedly under consideration is taking the EU nation’s state-owned broadcaster DW Deutsch and DW-TV broadcasters off the air in Russia altogether, a senior official told the Kommersant newspaper.
Berlin has denied claims that the authorities influenced YouTube’s decision to take the channel down. However, Kommersant’s source said that “the arguments from the German side that the government is not involved in the decision to restrict the RT DE activities over the ‘state status’ of the channel are not accepted,” the source said.
“Either some solutions regarding RT DE and its work are found, like it was done with other state-funded outlets, or retaliatory measures will be introduced,” the official stressed, adding that such outlets as “DW, BBC and many others” receive state funding, yet are allowed to operate in Germany freely.
The retaliatory measures may also include some unspecified restrictions imposed on individual German journalists working in Russia, another government source told RIA Novosti, without providing any further detail.
RT’s new round-the-clock German-language channel was launched on December 16 2021. The outlet went on the air from Moscow and was broadcast in the EU under a valid license through Serbia, obtained under the European Convention on Transfrontier Television (ECTT).